


Scales Under Her Fingers

by HarmoniaChimera



Category: Divinity: Original Sin (Video Games)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Augmented Canon, Canon Compliant, Elemental Magic, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Multi, Psychological Drama, Slow Burn, Slow Burn (Red/Sebille), The Void, mention of trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:55:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24343858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarmoniaChimera/pseuds/HarmoniaChimera
Summary: For those who are in agreement that some subplots of Div:OS2 (romantic, especially), are just... non-satisfactory, I present this absolute monster of a long-fic. Features augmented canon-compliant reality, in which I don't reject what the game does but instead aim to make it workin spite of thatanyway, as well as 30k+ words of slow-burn and mutual pining in the midst of their nerve-wracking adventure, and some detailed descriptions of angst, smut, fluff, love, battle, death, and all of the inner turmoils.Sebille trained to be a conjurer but that ended when she was enslaved by the Master. The Red Prince has always been taught to hide and pretend. Ifan can feel an instant connection with his new companions, more so than he ever had with his previous ones, but they don't need to know that. And Fane is just enjoying the ride; until he's not.
Relationships: Fane/Sebille (Divinity: Original Sin), Ifan Ben-Mezd/Sebille, The Red Prince/Sebille
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

_“You may be a prince, and I can just about handle your constant complaining about the conditions, the food… I get it. You’re spoiled and unaccustomed to the wild. But I will not have you disrespecting me or anyone else. Out here, you’re no royalty. You’re a nobody, another adventurer like the rest of us. And if you want to travel with this group, you will accept we are all equal.” She flicked her needle between her fingers. “Or you will learn, painfully, that I know exactly what makes lizards tick. Understood?”_

“…Ever since we were so bold as to bid our farewell to Fort Joy by any means, it’s all been rather… fun.” The Red Prince had a twinkle in his eye when he said it, regarding Sebille with something like appreciation? gratitude? wonder? Ah, who knew with those damned lizards. Nevertheless, she chuckled, though her cheeks burnt under that gaze, even more heated now than they already were after that detailed account of Red’s demonic… escapades. He dismissively waved his taloned hand. “Oh, I could complain about the food and the loggings and the sheer barbarity of the common folk, but in truth, all of that fits within the larger frame that is adventure. _Adventure_ is precisely what my life was missing.” His gaze softened into a look that was almost warm on her skin. “I told you earlier I could tell you tales about what it was like to be a Prince of the House; tales that would last us a thousand nights.” Was it just her or was there a subtext to those words? “But I’d much rather speak of the tale we are shaping now.”

Sebille swallowed, averting her eyes before his smoulder threatened to bore into her mind. Then, with a smirk, she gave Red a sideways glance. “I’m still interested in your stories,” she said softly. Ifan and Fane walked several paces before them, blissfully oblivious to the double-bottomed exchange going on in the back.

Red matched her smirk with his own, his eyes only then leaving hers to look ahead, his head held high as he said, “Accompany me back to my empire and I’ll tell them all in the palatial setting they deserve.”

Sebille’s smile dropped as blood froze in her veins and a shudder passed through her, muscles tensing in a fight-or-flight response at the very notion. Only the twisting scar on her cheek burnt with the memories of pain, humiliation, and unbearable blood spill. Words swole up in her throat, so thick she could scarcely breathe, and she slowed to a stop.

Red noticed instantly and cast one last glance at the others walking away as he stopped in front of her himself to shield her from their gaze. He watched her worriedly, scrambling for words for the first time since she’s known him. “I apologise. I… wasn’t thinking.” Her jaw worked as she fought, oh, so hard, to keep tears from spilling out. Her body was shaking so hard she could barely stand. “Sebille…” She looked straight at him and inhaled, his lizard features striking her like a palm to the cheek as if she was seeing him for the first time. Red nodded resolutely, his gaze and voice surprisingly soft. “I promise, if you chose to do so, no harm would befall you. You’d be under my protection; no one would dare lay a hand on you.”

She scoffed, but the tremors stopped anyway. Averting her tearful eyes, she gently shook her head. “You’re banished, remember? You’re hardly in any position to protect anyone.” And before he could go off about his plan to reclaim his throne, she added, “And he…” Her hand shot up to her cheek, fingers tracing the bumpy lines for the thousandth time. “ _He_ doesn’t need hands to—”

“You’ve broken out from under him once and you shall do so again.” Red moved as if to lay a hand on her shoulder but hesitated mid-air, even though his voice was firm and certain, like he spoke of the most undisputable fact. “We’re Godwoken, after all. _You’re_ Godwoken. You’re not a slave anymore, in fact, I would argue you were never one in the first place.” Very softly and slowly, he reached out and placed his hand on hers, tracing the scar on her cheek himself. “If you were, he wouldn’t have needed that to control you. And it wouldn’t have failed.”

“It… I…” She blinked and her tears flowed, wetting Red’s claws until they sparkled in the rays of the setting sun. Seeping through the leaves, they danced on his scales in gold and purple and shone through his spiked crest, mesmerising in its, or _his_ , simple beauty. His hand, warm somehow, closed around her cheek when she didn’t move away.

“You’re not a slave, Sebille,” he repeated. “And you shall never be one.”

She leant into his touch despite her panicked heart threatening to hammer its way out of her chest; despite the too clear of a memory of the song which enslaved her, a song she could easily imagine Red would be able to sing, right now, even as he spoke such words. “You’re a lizard, for the Seven’s sake,” she only whispered. “The prince of a slaver race. How can you say that?”

“Because we are above all that. There are larger things at stake than an age-old, corrupted system so devoid of its germinal principles, which the current Houses of my empire hold on to, and poorly so, may I add, as though their very existence depended on it.” His hand ever so gently fell from her cheek, the scar surrendering to the evening chill. His look was almost distant, as if he was gazing into the past and the future at the same time. “Who never saw, or refused to see, the one simple truth: there are no slaves in Dreams.”

With a start, they were both pulled out of the moment by the sound of the others’ footsteps hurrying back. “Everything alright?” Ifan asked as they approached, looking around for any signs of danger. “Why are we stopping?”

Sebille gave Red a glance and said, “I can’t have that conversation right now,” as she set back on their path down the road, rubbing her tears off before anyone noticed, and clenching her shaking hands into fists. No amount of assurances was going to change what had happened to her and her people at the lizards’ claws. And no amount of talk of the Empire’s policy or Red’s personal principles was going to make it all right. Even if she did have the insane notion of going with him, which she _surely_ didn’t, she would never not be in danger, and _he_ would never be respected if he tried to fulfil that promise. It was nothing but a fairy tale at best and a ploy at worst. And she refused to admit even to herself just how long she’d been yearning for a fairy tale.


	2. Chapter 2

_“Across the world, who is renowned above all others for their exquisite lovemaking abilities?”_

_Sebille tried her best to suppress the glance towards the Red Prince, and failed miserably. It was just long enough for her to catch a smirk rising on his lips, even as she looked back at the man and raised her brow in the most laid-back, self-explanatory manner she could._

"Bloody hell!" Sebille rattled the locked gate, looking down the cliff at the few giant monsters trying to tear a house apart. Faint curses coming from the inside could be heard even from this distance, as could be seen the little boy standing on the other side of the raised bridge, looking worriedly for a glance of his mother.

"Why would anybody even put a gate here?" she groaned, shaking her fist at the silent servant of Ryker's bumbling about. Even his spirit had nothing to say. "It's a cemetery, by the Seven! Who cares?!"

"Grave-robbers." Ifan looked up the hill at the richer crypts. "You say that like _we_ haven't explored at least three of those in the last few hours."

Sebille gave an exasperated sigh. "The only reason we even came through here was to get down _there_." And godsdammit if a lot hasn't happened in the meantime, starting with deals with bloody Ryker, to a decayed, angry ancestor tree, to Red and his little bloody revelation. She groaned again. "Fane, wanna have a go at the lock?"

"Sure." The skeleton shrugged under the pile of clothes hanging off of him and removed one glove to fiddle in the lock with his thin, bony fingers. "...Not going to happen, I'm afraid," he said after a while. Another screech of the Voidwoken was carried with the wind.

"Shall I break it down?" the Prince offered, already reaching for his two-handed sword. Sebille threw him one black look before turning away.

"No, your sword’s already in need of repairs. Last thing we need is for you to break a legendary weapon on these bars." She stared at the gate for a while, her thin face scrunched in concentration. Suddenly, she dropped her pack and rifled through the small library of scrolls before finally handing one to Fane. "Teleport me over."

"Just you?" Ifan frowned. "Not that you can't handle yourself, but..."

"...It is Voidwoken we're discussing. _Giant_ Voidwoken." The Red Prince's face was as etched with worry as Ifan's was as he looked down, down, down to her Elven form. Only Fane welcomed the plan with naught but a little shrug and was now familiarising himself with the spell on the scroll.

Sebille rolled her eyes. "I'll be fine. We're _God_ woken after all."

"Let me go instead, in the least," the Prince offered again. Ifan eyed him with a squint. Was that his 'knight' showing or did he worry about Sebille? Or was he merely just _this_ sure of himself?

Sebille dismissed him with a shake of her head as she secured her pack across her back. "Please. I'm the best woman for the job. We don't know anything about these particular Voidwoken, what they're resistant to, whether they're more susceptible to magic or brute strength... _I'll_ know when I've approached them, and I can do both."

"I can use magic," Red mumbled disdainfully but his words were met with all they deserved when Fane snorted loudly with what sounded like a barely contained chortle.

"Sure, alright then," Sebille only said before nodding at Fane.

The first thing she saw after waking up back on Lady Vengeance from the well-deserved sleep after a very fulfilling battle with the four Voidwoken and single-handedly reuniting a mother with her son (though, fine, Mari did join the fight and help immensely, even if Sebille had to adjust her tactics to keep her alive...), was a scaly red face at her bedside. Sebille stifled a roll of her eyes and welcomed the Prince only with a raised brow.

"Good morning," he said in a voice that made it clear he wasn't having a good morning at all.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, not even trying to hide the irritation in her voice, and hoping _that_ , in turn, would hide her dismay.

"It was very foolish," he replied, boring her with a heavy, dark gaze, "facing a pack of Voidwoken alone. We're supposed to be a team."

Now she could hold back neither her eyes, nor a scoff. "Please. I didn't realise you enjoyed blood spill quite so much to be offended when you're left out of a fight."

"That is not at all--" he started but Sebille cut him off.

"I implore you to leave, Your Highness," she said, her voice trickling with vitriol. "I'd like to go back to sleep."

And with that, she turned her back on him, legs so wrapped up in the covers she either didn't realise or care she’d left most of herself bare to his slitted, yellow gaze. The Prince stood to leave and cast one last glance at her exposed back and slim thighs, her Elven clothes failing to conceal... well, anything.

Something lurched inside him, begging to be _released_.


	3. Chapter 3

_“Is there anything I can do?”_

_“There might be… later.”_

_“Ah. What kind of gentleman would I be if I refused help to a beautiful woman?”_

_“Gentleman? That is the last thing I’d like you to be.”_

The screams were unbearable, and the moans even more so. The Prince could only imagine what was happening over there: he had been left to watch over the camp as Sebille had dragged the exasperated Ifan to the nearby forest, Fane following behind with a shake of his skull. It had all felt like a joke he had not been made part of, and he did not enjoy the feeling; however, it was hardly the worst part of the situation. The worst must have been the sounds: the rattling of bones, the smacking of flesh, the grunting, and the delighted screams Sebille did not spare. “Oh, gods, Ifan!” and “F… F-Fane!” filled the air, faint as they were, muffled by the trees, yet still so clear to his lizard ears. He groaned softly in what could only be described as truly persistent annoyance, raking his claws into the bark of the log he’d made a makeshift bench out of. And why should he even care? He’d discovered his destiny. They were bound north, just as he requested, to “get it over with”, in Sebille’s own words. He’d be united with his fated lover soon enough. He’d have found the love arranged in the stars. As little as he believed in the gods’ hold on the mortal world, even less so since the burden of rescuing them from their current predicament, that dream… It surely felt _divine_.

And yet hearing Sebille’s sweet moans, calling the names of other men… His jaw set tight, sharp points of his teeth digging into his lips. He spat the blood out like a peasant and groaned again. Such torture and he couldn’t even fathom whence it arose. He forlornly remembered the way his insides churned whenever he’d have the chance to trace the barky lines of her lithe body with his eyes, so often hardly covered in a truly Elven fashion; and he’d always wondered if such a reaction was brought upon him by the sight of the lizard names tattooed on her arms, lizards he knew to be her past victims, or by the intrusive thoughts of her slim thighs clenching down on his hips…

That must have been it. Like so many of his kind, he had fallen to the wiles of a woman of a slave race. He shuddered at the thought, though uncertain why, precisely. Was he disgusted by the idea? Or the way his mind set onto the track followed by so many slave-keepers with such ease?

…It _was_ in his blood, was it not?

It was perfectly natural that after spending every minute of every day together for such a long time, he’d wake up one day feeling _something_ for her. That ‘something’ being this obvious, overpowering, inescapable _lust_. The kind that made him long to see her every morning, to catch a glimpse of her before she put on her armour, to crave her touch, to even go as far as shield her from harm… But it _must_ have been only lust. There was no question about it.

…Was there?

Fane returned first. He threw the Prince a slightly abashed glance but then gave a dismissive shrug, even though he was wiping his bony fingers on the hem of his robes as he walked. Then, after a long while, quiet voices came from the forest again, accompanied by the slithering of clothes and clinking of armour buckles.

“Ifan? Can I sleep with you tonight?”

“What do you mean? We just slept together.”

Despite the voices falling silent, the Prince could all but hear the sigh Sebille must have given him. “You _know_ what I mean.”

“Of course. But if you’re asking silly questions, you’ll get silly answers.”

“’Silly’ doesn’t even cut it.” Sebille’s voice grew louder as she all but stormed into the camp again, her armour pieces in her arm and her willowy body covered only in her usual scant garments. Red could barely turn his gaze away, his own armour hardly enough to contain his turmoil.


	4. Chapter 4

_He was roused by a sudden gust of cold night air as Sebille slipped into his bedroll, quiet like a killer. “Shh, Red, it’s just me.” She pulled his hand away from the pommel of his sword and settled it on the small of her back as she climbed on top of him. The manner in which her warm body was slithering against his scales… He was going to be ready sooner than ever before. An affectionate smile bloomed on her lips when she finally felt him. “Take me, my prince,” she whispered in his ear._

_He awoke with a start. The wind had picked up. Dawn was breaking, and in the waking light, Sebille’s watchful silhouette was still and ephemeral against the firelight._

The faint glow of the fire danced on his red skin as the Prince held vigil over his enslumbered companions. The countryside was silent except for the crackles of the burning logs and Ifan and Fane’s steady breathing. Sebille, however, kept coming in and out of consciousness, toiling against the night terrors which so often plagued her.

The Prince watched her with one yellow eye, trying to gauge the moment when the risk of waking her would outweigh the horrors of her subconscious. His gaze wandered along her jaw line and down her slender neck, the willowy lines of her skin forming intricate patterns under his scrutiny; her breast heaved heavily with each deep, shaky breath. Her body heat ebbed in his vision as she tossed and turned, every new position giving rise to _something_ … something he couldn’t quite appellate. The infamous lust, perhaps?

Only the names were constant. Slightly elevated, blood-red scar tissue was the only part of her consistently cooler than the rest of her skin, the letters inscribed into her arms as clear to him as though he were gazing upon them when the sun was at its highest. He recognised some of them. At least half of the lizards she’d killed must have been from the House of War, _his_ House; and yet he could not find a shred of resentment in his soul. Not when her other arm, tucked under her chin, was equally marred with Elven names—those her master had her hunt. Bile still rose to Red’s throat at the thought of such use of a living scar, the pattern on Sebille’s cheek, hot to the sight with the dormant Source. He despised the thought of someone of his own House, perhaps his own kin… Of everything Sebille had suffered at his hand. If one could not keep one’s slaves happy, one should not keep any, was what the Prince always believed. On the other claw, he never directly dealt with any of his _own_ slaves himself. Who was he to speak? All the principle, naught to show for it.

Perhaps they were right to have banished him.

Sebille gave a soft groan and tossed again, the bedroll pooling and stretching at her lissome hips. And for an unbeknownst reason, it took Red an embarrassingly long while to muster the courage to speak up. “Are you asleep?”

“Clearly not,” she muttered. Her celestite eyes fluttered open, glistening drowsily with the flames’ reflections. “Is it so obvious?”

“Nightmares again,” he stated more than asked.

She nodded solemnly, then looked around disorientated. “Please tell me it’s not time for me to take over yet.”

“No.” Red paused with a sigh, hoping not to sound overly patronising as he said, “Do try to sleep through the night.” He could swear, if she lunged at him with her needle, he would not defend himself. “I shall rouse Fane at dawn if need be.”

But she stayed in her place, seemingly motionless, her gaze still firmly set somewhere on his jaw. “Fane is almost blind. Get Ifan up.”

“I will.” He chuckled wryly. “Have you noticed it is usually either you or me who keeps watch?”

She shrugged. “Between my hearing and your eyesight? Please, those _humans_ don’t even come close. And Fane’s senses…” She snorted. Red only nodded mindlessly, hoping darkness would be enough to hide how much her words made him _feel_. “And don’t think I forgot you have night vision in that skull of yours.”

“I don’t have—” He groaned in exasperation. “I see heat waves.” He inched closer to the fire, feeding it a couple of logs, temperature rising before his eyes. “Or _sense_ heat waves. I am not even truly certain.”

“And that’s why you’ll never not have first watch,” she teased. Red shook his head though a smirk played on his lips. He’d missed their banter. Ever since the cemetery, Sebille had been more distant and reserved. And he couldn’t— “Though I suppose it would make sense for a _dragon_.” There it was. The words spat through gritted teeth. Without another sound, Sebille turned her back on him and buried herself in the bedroll.

Red sighed softly, pulling the blanket up on his cold-blooded shoulders. None of that mattered anymore, not with the Red Princess almost within his arms. In fact, none of that should have ever mattered. Sebille… She put up a good face and an even better fight, but she was an elf. A slave. _(You’re not a slave, Sebille.)_ How could she ever compete with the superior lizard race? _(And you shall never be one.)_ His tongue flicked across his tight, scaled lips. Deep, shaky breaths did nothing to calm his frayed nerves. There was only one path before him now, one he must take at all costs. And if he can’t cure himself of whatever affliction Sebille had inflicted on him any other way, he shall follow in the footsteps of his ancestors. He shall take her and be done with it.

In fact, he shall do so right now. He listens intently to make sure the other men are fast asleep before he’s on top of her, pushing her into her bedroll. “What—“ escapes her in the split second it takes her to understand what is happening. “N--!” Her gasp of protest is lost in Red’s hand. She tries to reach for a weapon but too late. He’s stronger than her, _bigger_ than her; he overpowers her easily. Before long, she’s completely at his mercy, and there is no mercy for the slaves of War. Tears flow down her face when the memories hit. She can look away but she can’t escape the sensation of scales on skin. She whimpers as he pushes her head into the pillow, his manhood snaking inside her at the first thrust of his hips. He keeps one eye on the others, making sure it’s safe, even as he’s wracking her body with rage he only now realises he has. Blood’s invisible against his scales anyway. Her cries and tears are lost in the thick material, and any strength she can muster to defend herself is lost against his. She grows limp when his knot forces its way inside; she learns her place. There is no mercy for those who dare disrespect the Prince. No mercy for the slaves of War.

He swallowed the thought back bitterly, bile pooling in his throat. Perhaps she was right to have banished him.

Her entire body shuddered when Ryker began his ritual. Souls appeared before her eyes, kneeling, bound, in front of the Sourcerer; their lips open wide in silent, ghostly screams. This was wrong. She could feel it in her soul. Her heart ached, squashed by Tir-Cendelius who yearned for the power the souls were a promise to. She fought him, taking a step towards Ryker.

“Stop this,” she hissed. “This is not worth a mass soul sacrifice.”

Ryker ignored her, lost in his incantation, calling the names of the souls bared before him. Sebille clenched her teeth against the god urging every last molecule of her body to resist her will. Her trembling hand travelled the distance to the hilt of her sword—a skeletal one rested on top just a split second later.

“He’s already called upon them,” Fane explained, nodding towards the souls hauntingly hovering in front of all of their eyes. “If you stop him now, they will suffer this torment till the end of time.” She cast him a glance. Was this truly his concern for those souls that spoke the words, or his desire for power? But one look into his empty sockets and she could, somehow, see plainly that he was telling the truth. Was it his necromancing abilities or personal experience, she could not tell, but it was enough to stay her hand.

It was over one sentence later. The souls were sacrificed to the Void, which was somehow less of a torture than the ritual itself, and their Source filled Sebille to the brim. She felt powerful, godly, _alive_ … and so very, very wrong. She could, or only imagined she could, hear the echoes of the souls’ voices inside her; feel their lives’ pain and joy, sense their fears and hopes. It was like she had put her ear to the Void’s portal and eavesdropped, tempting it to come and get her and… She glanced around her friends, each going through a turmoil of their own. Their group was now a beacon for the Void, a walking, ticking time bomb. Some part of her knew this was necessary to win this war and defeat the Void—but another felt… tricked. Betrayed. Like this was all a ploy to make them dance like puppets. For Ryker? For the Void? For someone, or something, much greater than any of this? She could not say.

They killed him right after, of course. One glance between them and they knew—they were not going to give a recipe for what might have been, as far as they knew, the most powerful weapon of the Eternals to a power-hungry, spider-venom-loving, human necromancer who had spent what seemed like years enslaving souls and creatures and binding them to him and his sick cemetery. They had seen enough to make their judgment about Ryker. And yet, even after he laid dead at their feet, his spirit hovering above his own body with a bemused, deviant smile on its pale face, even then they still felt… unnatural. Aberrant. Violated. And the Source whispered like a meandering river inside their own souls.

Sebille shuddered again, a sob wracking her body as she leant weakly into Red, who uncertainly circled his free arm around her, the other still clutched on his blood-dripping sword; at least until Ifan gathered her into his embrace, wrapping her in it tightly, like he was trying to squeeze the life back into her. To nobody’s surprise, it didn’t work.

She was almost limp when she finally managed to pull away and they continued their grim procession through the underground chambers strewn with dusty bones and books, and bodies, and rotten flesh. “Sordid branch of necromancy,” Fane sighed, taking in a wooden, bloodied table adorned with pieces of what was supposedly going to be another one of Ryker’s silent servants.

With every step further away from the central stage of the chamber, Sebille felt more like herself again. The fight had taken a lot out of her; and the smell of blood and meat, rotten as it were, awakened an ancient hunger inside her. She sighed, picking up a severed arm which promptly _oozed_ out from between her fingers. “If you lovely men find anything remotely edible in here, do let me know,” she instructed, looking through the shelves for anything worthwhile or useful. Fane only grumbled, moving along. Clearly, he did not enjoy this side of his preferred mystic arts.

Ifan whistled to get her attention, motioning towards another table, pieces of flesh here considerably fresher than the rest of the chamber. He and Red both grimaced when she picked morsels off of skulls and femurs, her eyes glazing over with the memories she ingested, shivers running down her body. They were only slivers of thought: and yet through her new, expanded Source more than enough to understand more than she saw, as if she was reaching through the Void and connecting to those poor souls.

She hummed the song in the lizards’ Old Tongue through her vision, coming back to Red’s intrigued face looking up to her from the lower level. “Was that…?” he only asked.

“Well, I think I found Consul Zara,” she grimaced, putting the rest of the leg back where she found it.

“One shudders to envisage what befell the rest of her,” Red mumbled, moving along and picking a couple of grenades off of another shelf.

“Feel free to adopt the fire salamander,” Sebille replied only half-jokingly. “As unsure as I am if I can handle _two_ scaly prigs, His Fieriness might at least come in handy.” She bit off an ear off of a severed head she found lying around in an acceptable state—and then shook out of her vision with another sob.

“Sebille?” Ifan was at her side in an instant, pulling her away.

“He… the dog… Oh, gods…” Whatever will she had left to keep herself together was now all gone. She buried herself in Ifan’s leather armour, whimpering in mournful pain coming from nowhere in particular, and yet her entire being at once. Red and Fane mercifully pretended not to see anything and continued searching the chamber. Her chest burnt with the ache of her soul and the wails of the dead, ribs buckling under the weight of the memories she kept, memories that were only left for her to find because they were too dark to take along to the Hall of Echoes. Memories she burdened herself with, heavy with tears unwept and words unsaid, and yet stretched so thin by the unseen ties to those left behind. Her knees gave as Ifan lowered her to the ground, holding her while she mourned for all the lives she had touched, remembered, lost, and _taken_.


	5. Chapter 5

_She hated Tir-Cendelius. Truly and fully hated him from the first moment he appeared before her, for the ‘tough love’ act, for the way he spoke about her time as a slave as if it was her fault, for making her responsible for all the ill in the world. For not giving her a choice. Making her his champion. For instantly pretending to be her best friend as soon as she did what he wanted. But also for being the only person she could trust to keep the Elves’ best interests in mind, for truly loving the children of the forest he created in his visage, and for looking so thoroughly heart- and willbroken, and truly, truly weak and helpless the closer the Void approached._

“Well,” Sebille said one morning, taking in their surroundings, power resonating through all four of them so loud, it was almost deafening. “I don’t know about you, but I feel ready to face my god again. Shall we go back to Driftwood for the ritual?”

Ifan and Fane nodded, but the Prince stood rooted in place. “Should we not keep looking for the princess, however?” he seemingly asked, but there was a note of regal insistence in his tone; he was not going to take a ‘no’ for an answer. And yet she was going to give him one anyway.

“Red, the only area we haven’t yet explored lies beyond the Lone Wolves’ territory,” she said, moulding her voice into a perfect mixture of understanding and firmness. “And if what my brethren are saying is even the slightest indication, we will need all the power we can possibly muster to get through there alive.”

He opened his mouth to argue but then met her eyes and his own gaze softened. He knew she was right; yet he would not say it. Instead, he only looked out to the northern horizon and sighed. “It feels like we are moving backwards from our ultimate goal.”

“You mean _your_ ultimate goal.” Sebille let out a tired sigh and stepped down the ledge with Ifan’s help. “Just come on. We’ll get there, eventually.”

“I only hope to find her before the assassins do,” Red spat out, casting such large daggers at her back as he followed her she could sense them even without looking.

“For the love of…” Sebille sighed and stopped, whirling around to face him head on. She was a good foot shorter than him and considerably less… hefty, for lack of a better word, but she had no intention of letting that stop her. “You will be of no use to her if you’re dead, Red. And I have no intention of losing my own pretty head for the sake of your loin-fire, either. So we _will_ go and make sure that our gods deem us ready to face Divinity before _I_ deem us ready to face an entire encampment full of highly trained mercenaries.” Her eyes were blazing right in front of his lizard face by the time she was finished. She turned on her heel again, marching down the hill to catch up with Ifan and Fane. “And if you’re unhappy with that, Red, you are welcome to go off and search for her on your own. How about that?”

Only a low hiss escaped Red’s throat as he followed her without another word, clawed hand tightly coiling around his sword’s grip.

The gods were weak. That much was obvious. They needed them to get to their destination as soon as possible, and yet there was still so much to be done. They couldn’t very well leave this island the way they found it: if they did so, they could not even dream to be worthy of Divinity in the first place. Sebille chewed on her lip, weighing those two warring truths in her head even as she was casting spell after spell at the Voidwoken who had just murdered Meister Siva, her cheek flaring up with every tendril of the Source she mustered.

The basement was filled with smoke, slick with blood, and buzzing with electricity by the time they were done. Siva’s spirit stood in the middle of the chamber, something like a bemused look on her face. She asked them to fulfil their mission, go where the gods urged them to go—as if Sebille didn’t have enough turmoil in her already. And then she asked for a statue. Of course she did.

They stumbled up the hatch hand in hand, helping one another, all still weak and so, so _hungry_ after the ordeal with the gods and the Voidwoken. The vampiric Sourcery they had been bestowed upon felt like a stain on their souls. They collapsed in the dishevelled house as one, not a word uttered to one another, all together still not ready to face the bustle of the town below. The closer they were to the Council of the Seven, to the Well of Ascension, the nearer the time to choose loomed. Only one of them would be able to become Divine. And how could they even choose? Ifan insisted she should be the one to take it, just because she had a background in the magic arts before and he himself could not handle the responsibility of following in the footsteps of the man he once worshipped as a god, and was so gruesomely disillusioned. Fane had kept his thoughts closely to himself, but after what had happened to his family, Sebille imagined he would rather eject the god and batter her to her divine death himself if he could, for the stupid mistakes the gods had him make in their name. _She_ could agree with Ifan—and did before—that mastering the Source seemed to come to her much easier than the rest of them, but she wasn’t truly certain if that was enough to warrant her Ascension into Divinity. She had no desire to take it for herself: she had only one goal, to kill her former Master, and beyond that, she only wanted a simple, uncomplicated life somewhere in a beautiful countryside, details of that life to be determined. She had absolutely no intention to have ever gotten herself involved in this huge world-saving quest, but she also couldn’t resist the call of duty, undeniably so. The only one of them who would truly be glad to Ascend was Red, but both Fane and Ifan had once suggested they would fight him every step of the way, just because they believed he would not make a good Divine. Despite the fact that he was more accustomed and trained to rule than the other three of them combined…

She looked up from where she was tracing patterns in the dust on the floor, gaze jumping between her companions. It was a cruel game to force them to make their alliance, to grow together and trust each other with their lives, only to then be forced to betray each other in the pursuit of power. A cruel game and yet only one more sin to add to the gods’ long list of transgressions. She shook her head resolutely, looking them each in the eye one by one. “The gods speak like petty tyrants. Let us not cut each other’s throats in their name, but stand by each other in our own.”

Fane nodded. “This problem tore the Seven apart, but perhaps it can bring us together? I say, ‘all for one, one for, at most, three others!’”

Sebille chuckled, nodding to him in thanks, then looked to Ifan. The man she had considered her best friend for a long while now. He refused to meet her gaze. “A good wolf doesn’t take out the competition until there’s no other option. Let’s hunt together. For now.” How could he speak words in tone so comforting and yet with meaning so deceptively dangerous? She gazed upon him with sorrow… at least until Red spoke up.

“I’ve use for neither gods nor men,” he said disdainfully. “I myself am the island that is my destination, you a mere port along the way I tolerate—for the time being.”

Sebille’s breath caught in her throat as she pulled herself up to her feet, jaw working. “Well, perhaps you should go searching the Lone Wolf fortress for your beloved princess all by your lonesome, then,” she spat, and with an elaborate mockery of the lizardly bow, added, “Good luck, _oh, Divine_.”

He stood, but before he could retort, she was already gone, and she made _sure_ to storm out of there before any of them could see the tears in her eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

_“I fought him every step of the way. I do not even know how long I spent there, how much time passed before he would call upon me again. How many times he would do so, altogether. All I have is these names on my arm. The nights and days blend together when you live, or rather exist, locked up in a small cell underground. Sometimes, it was almost too easy to fall into a stupor and lose any sense of self; sometimes, it was unbearable, only I and the dark and silence. And sometimes, I’d call up small summons, tiny elementals that would fit in the palm of my hand, just to stay any measure of sane; even if it hurt so much it seemed impossible it would ever be otherwise.” She glanced down at the child-sized incarnate that was still following them after the recent fight and patted its head fondly before its life was through. “It’s hard to count the days when every hour is a torture.”_

“I killed him slow. Preserves the flavour.”

Sebille cast one glance at the spirit of an Elven boy cowering in the corner of the room, a frozen stream of blood between his eyes, extending from a perfectly round hole in the middle of his skull. Her stomach lurched. She did not wait to hear the rest of the conversation.

The first thing she saw when she stood in the doorway were two enormous wolves settled down on both sides of it, gnawing on what seemed to be too small to be adult body parts, and not only in comparison to the beasts’ gargantuan size… She gritted her teeth so hard her temples ached. The… barbarian in the middle of the room had his fur-covered back turned to her; his guards, thoroughly failing at their job, only gave her and the men behind her a bored look, but did nothing to stop her approach.

“Are you Roost Anlon?” she spat, even though she already knew the answer. The name meant nothing to her—but the face that turned to her, with its maddened eyes and an unkempt yellow beard, split by a sickening smile, that face was unchanged, and forever emblazoned in her mind. The half-surprised, half-delighted sound he made was nothing compared to the barely-contained rage that rushed through her veins. His lips curled around her name with way more pleasure than they had any right to; the rest of his words were lost in the red that overcame her vision. Teeth grinding, she stood tall.

“I have come to ask you a question,” she said with as much calm resolve as she could muster under the circumstances. The bare awareness of Ifan and Red standing right behind her and the buzz of Fane’s magic that could be sensed a bit farther back, gave her more strength than she could describe right now. She was not alone anymore. She had nothing to fear from this madman.

But the nauseating grin he gave her was almost enough to make her crack and lunge straight for his eyes. “You’ll have to give me a kiss first. Lots of tongue, too.” Sebille nearly choked on the bile coming up to her throat. A grimace contorted her face.

“You’re a vile and petty man,” Saheila spat from her place on the floor, Roost’s hold on her face tightening even as he stared, enamoured, at Sebille, almost as if he wanted to prove he had the upper hand.

“Shut up,” he hissed, shaking her. “It’s _her_ I’m talking to.” His eyes were sweeping over Sebille’s face in small circles, like he was remembering. But when his tongue very slowly brushed over his lips, even Ifan tensed up behind her. “Sebille…” Roost said her name again almost reverently, and it only made her sick to her stomach. “I was wondering when I’d see you again. Knew the time would come after you broke Daddy’s leash.”

Fury raged inside her like a storm, threatening to spill over. She dug her nails in her palms, hoping for the pain to sober her up, but to no avail; she could see the corner of Roost’s lips twitch when he noticed a shudder go through her. That’s when she knew: no matter how much she longed to feel his warm blood spilling over her face and fingers, she could _not_ give him the satisfaction. He was only trying to knock her off-balance. And he thrived on her pain. That, she could not abate.

She gave a sardonic chuckle and shook her head. “You’ll have to do better than that if you seek to provoke me.”

He fell quiet, regarding her with a new eye, uncertainty souring his face. She took a deeper breath, reaching back to sense the men behind her again. She _was_ strong enough. She let Roost’s words fly over her head, only sifting what mattered most: the Master’s location. He gave it up without a word of protest, and instantly, her hands settled on her weapons.

“And why would you just tell me that?”

Roost grinned again, all spite and yellowed teeth. Was she supposed to be scared? “Because I’m going to take you to him,” he growled. A shiver, ever so small, ran down her back. Her nostrils flared. “I’m going to _beat_ you like I did before.” _You could very well try_ , she thought with disdain. Ifan took a protective step closer, covering her left flank. Red stayed behind but his sword was already in his hand, ready to go. One could hear Fane’s faint sigh from behind as his wands crackled. And Roost seemed only more and more excited as they prepared for the inevitable, though his eyes never left Sebille’s, his gaze holding no less than a promise. “I’m going to _bleed_ and _bind_ you…” She stifled another shiver, breath catching in her throat. She could already imagine all the things she was going to cut off. “And what’s left of you—no more than a battered bit of meat…” This time the shudder was so strong, her arms waivered. That hit way too close to home, brought back way too many memories. _Don’t!_ , her mind screamed, even as she drew her dagger. “…I’m going to deliver to the Master all over again.” _Don’t!!_ “He’ll be _so_ glad to have his puppy back.” _No!_ “Even if she’ll have lost some of her lustre…”

Even before the sentence was through, he had already scaled half of the chamber. Sebille instinctively stepped back, raising her sword: but Ifan was right there, meeting Roost’s mace with his crossbow, then promptly firing it in his gut. Red dove to the back of the room, engaging both of the rangers, leaving them little room to move away. Fane summoned his bone spider who immediately lunged at the nearer wolf. Ifan’s own was already trading bites with the other.

Sebille’s heart swole in her chest even as she slipped behind Roost’s back and buried her dagger in it with a satisfying squelch. Before he recovered, she was already casting Permafrost on Saheila. Red had made quick work of one of the bodyguards and was now advancing on the other; the bone widow had felled the wolf. This would be over before Saheila would be vulnerable again. Sebille, eyes blazing with fury, turned back to Roost: he, wand in one hand and mace in the other, was battering at Fane who flung spells all over the room, all while Ifan emptied bolt after bolt into Roost’s leather armour to slow him down. Sebille paused for a split second: why wouldn’t he fire them at his head? He had the shot. He could have ended it right there and then. And then it dawned on her: that’s what he was trying to avoid. He was leaving Roost’s fate to her. And she knew exactly what she wanted to do with it.

She slipped in between Roost and Fane who took the opportunity to move away before any of him got seriously broken. She stared the mad barbarian in the eye even as the last of his men fell to Red’s sword, and smiled up at him just before she stabbed her sword up his jaw. Whatever he was going to say, it came out as a gurgle; the tip of the blade painted the top of his head red. Blood spilt down her arms, splattered across her face, bizarrely warm against her flushed skin. She didn’t care, too busy watching life leaving his eyes before she finally let his log of a body fall to the sawmill’s floor. His spirit stayed in place, facing her with the same fury and madness as while he lived. She wasn’t sure if he even knew he was dead, at least not until he watched her, eyes locked, as she dislodged her sword from his head with a sickening squelch. Even Red grimaced, coming back from his own bloodbath, red scales unnaturally glistening here and there.

Sebille stood tall as she faced the spirit, her companions behind her again: she wanted him to see who defeated him, who took his life, and _why_. Because she was not alone. He would never get her alone—never get _anyone_ alone again. She demanded answers. He refused to give them. She didn’t really care: his corpse would yield the rest. She made sure he saw the fangs of Source emerge between her lips. There were many Lone Wolves left to fight; she meant to be prepared. His spectral eyes widened in fear and fury when he realised what she was about to do. “You can’t do this! I will devour you! I WILL DEVOUR YOU!” he screamed even as he burnt into a river of Source rushing into her.


	7. Chapter 7

_“Look! That is an Imperial caravan. That must be where she is.” The Red Prince was already kneeling to jump down the log slide, clearly intending to swim across the little river separating them from what he saw on the other side; but Sebille grabbed his arm with more strength than she could be suspected of, and yet it was clear he stopped short of his own volition. They measured each other up and down, seemingly in a stalemate, until the Prince spoke again. “You would have me hold back? Delay my destiny?”_

_Sebille sighed quietly but her grip tightened. “I get it,” she hissed, trying not to draw attention even with Ifan and Fane making sure they were still safe. “We have already established that you’re more of a lone wolf than the actual Lone Wolves over there, your sword’s your only friend, you have no regard for any of us, and this only works as long as it works for Your Majesty.”_

_The Prince seemed taken aback by the abundance of honesty Sebille was laying down on him. “That isn’t at all—”_

_“Save it. Whatever goes on inside that red head of yours, I made a promise to get you there, and I will. But you gave me a word of your own. And right now, I’m asking you to keep it. Please, don’t leave us to fight a pack of Lone Wolves all by ourselves. We need you with us.” She looked up at him, gaze suddenly much softer. “I need you.”_

Mad thoughts raced in her mind—thoughts of the past and future mingling together, the Mother Tree, tyrants and victims, and the faces of the elves who had all but begged her for help. She had nodded, still shocked after the revelation of being a Prime Scion had been laid on her, and they rejoiced, but there was no part of her who looked forward to meeting with the Mother Tree again. Even if she didn’t remember exactly how she came to be in the Master’s… possession, and her mind filled in the blanks, the very fact that she ran away in the first place must have meant something. There was a good reason for her to have escaped her destiny and duties, despite the honours bestowed upon her. And she couldn’t just ignore it.

She came back to when Red was already on his knee in front of Sadha, kissing her hand, and she was all but swooning about his manners, which, given what they had gone through earlier today, gave Sebille a sick feeling to her stomach that only deepened when she started mentioning ‘flesh’ and ‘life-shaping’ and whatever else. Did all lizards speak solely in innuendoes and she just had never noticed, or was it only the red ones?

She tapped Red on the shoulder, trying her best to keep a straight face. “How about you do the introductions?”

The look Sadha gave her spoke volumes. In part, perhaps it was the heat, Sebille thought bitterly, but she couldn’t shake the feeling mostly it was about her race. In Sadha’s mind, there was probably only one place next to an Imperial prince that an elf should occupy, and it was not one to allow speaking up unasked. Sebille had learned that the hard way.

She tuned them out again as soon as subtexts began anew. Something was nagging at the back of her mind. She looked around: Red was deep in a way-too-familiar conversation with Sadha, and though the guard standing next to her looked somehow different to the Imperial guards she remembered from back when, she couldn’t quite place it. And she was sure Red would have noticed if something was off. And yet it was. She looked around. There was nobody nearby, aside from the stranded traders from the other caravan who were bustling about, but she could swear she felt someone’s eyes on her. Her gaze fell on her companions: and while Red was oblivious to the world, Fane was nervously flicking his wands and Ifan was looking straight back at her with his brows low and eyes that said, ‘I don’t like this.’ She had to agree. She didn’t like any of this either.

“You and I, we know each other like only _true_ lovers do…” Sadha was saying as Sebille looked back to them, and it seemed like above Red’s shoulder and underneath her headdress, she was staring Sebille right in the eye. “…so at long last, let us become lovers.”

It took so much willpower not to roll her eyes, Sebille nearly staggered. She had tried and since given up any attempts to sympathise with Red’s and Sadha’s situation. They spoke in ardent enough generalities and Sebille was aware of the culture of arranged marriages that permeated the lizard way of life, but in truth, how _could_ there be any passion between them if they had but met for the first time? Not to say Sebille had any trouble imagining Red ‘fulfilling his duty’ here, not at all… But he would be fooling himself if he believed it was anything but a _pretense_ of intimacy when he’d barely even learnt the princess’s name just now. And yet, if his face and tone were any indication, he had already fallen under the illusion of perfection and aptness the princess was presenting, despite his widely-advertised intelligence, and for some reason, it was making Sebille even more uncomfortable. And she did not care for that bloody feeling at all.

“By my empire, yes!” _Hardly your empire, is it, though?_ “At long last we shall become lover.”

“Are you mad?” Sebille spat before her brain caught up to her tongue. “You’re about to follow this woman?” Red glared at her but it was far too late to back out now. The only thing her panicked mind could do now was at least belatedly come up with a good reason for the outburst. She focused on the uneasy feeling she’d had since they’d arrived and hoped so, so hard she wasn’t wrong. “That wagon of hers could be full of assassins!” She twisted her face into the most fitting mixture of concern and shock and certainty she could muster, her heart hammering in her chest so hard she was truly worried the lizards would _sense_ it.

“Surely you jest?” Sadha bristled, and to some extent, it gave Sebille satisfaction enough to stand just a little bit straighter. Something was definitely going on.

Red’s glare deepened, blazing with fury. “Yes, milady. She _jests_.”

Sebille’s lip curled only a little before she got control of her face again. “I assure you I’m quite serious. And I do not like this situation one bit!” It was the gods’ honest truth, so why did she feel like she should have just held her tongue and let him get on with it?

“Good lady, I really must protest!” And Sebille really didn’t care, but the fact Sadha had remembered how to be respectful and hopefully understood Sebille wasn’t just the Prince’s slave, despite the appearances, worked somewhat in her favour. “He and I, we are each other’s soul mates, bound to one another by prophecy and dream! We _must_ become one, it is… inevitable.”

Sebille sighed, closing her eyes so they couldn’t see them rolling. She heard that one before, and it changed nothing. But before she could speak, Red stepped a couple of paces closer, voice ever so slightly softer even if his eyes were still casting daggers in her direction. “She’s right,” he said. “You may be the accepted leader of our group, but this is greater than all of us.” Did he just say, ‘ _our_ group’? “To deny me now would be a slight I could never forget. Let alone forgive.”

She looked him in the eye and saw the expanse of fury she ignited within him, but also something like… concern? It was as if he was urging her to remember everything that led them to this point. And she did, and the truth was… when Saheila and Tovah said the fate of the elves laid on Sebille’s shoulders… she was ready. It was only when they mentioned what happened with the Mother Tree that the doubts were sowed. Sebille took a deeper breath, realising not only had she given Red her word, but if she were to find herself in a situation like his, she would have fought to see it through as well.

“…Very well,” she said. She’d had ample time to object to this. It wasn’t his fault that she’d have rather ignored the issue than spoken up earlier. “If this is so very important to you, you have my blessing.”

“Thank you,” he said in a much softer voice. There was something in his gaze she couldn’t quite describe: sympathy? appreciation? longing? Ah, who knew with this damned lizard. He cleared his throat and stepped back, almost as if worried they were too close. “That’s settled, then. Why don’t you, er… enjoy a nice stroll?” She arched her brow at him. “A nice, long stroll while the lady and I enjoy a more private moment.”

Sebille didn’t even try to stop the roll of her eyes this time around as she nodded at Ifan and Fane and walked away, head held high and eyes ahead. As if that was going to help.

“Are you all right?” Ifan asked when they were too far away to even see the wagon anymore. She plopped down on a tuft of grass and rested her forehead on her arms, shaking it slightly. The men sat down on either side of her, exchanging glances. “Come on. Talk,” Ifan urged. Sebille sat up straight only to let her head fall to Fane’s shoulder which she promptly pulled away from.

“You’re bony,” she muttered. They all chuckled even as she let Ifan put his arm around her instead.

“What’s wrong, then?” he asked.

She shrugged ever so slightly. “I don’t even know where to begin,” she scoffed. “Is it too late to say ‘everything’?”

“I’d say it’s too early,” Fane remarked. “The sun hasn’t set yet.”

Sebille laughed weakly against Ifan, clutching her side. “You seem awfully cheery for someone who went through what you did today,” he muttered, nudging her with his shoulder.

“I think I’m just at the stage where I can either laugh or cry. And I refuse to cry over that bastard.”

“Ah, there it is.” Ifan clicked his tongue. She could feel him exchanging gold with Fane behind her back. “I was wondering if it was really about the Princeling and…” He pointed his bearded chin more or less in the direction they came from. “…that.”

Sebille shrugged again, giving a wry scoff. “It’s not really about him. He’s just the last straw,” she said in a tired voice.

Ifan nodded against her head as Fane said, “Well, that’s good, because that’s the easiest to fix.”

“I think it’s way beyond fixing at this point.”

“I could set fire to the carriage.”

Sebille guffawed, tears in her eyes, doubling over in Ifan’s arms as she let out whatever she was holding inside. “Oh, shouldn’t have laughed this hard…” she said painfully and only laughed more. Ifan couldn’t help but join her but did notice the hand she still had clutched at her side.

“Are you all right there?” he asked, motioning to it.

“It’s just a bruise. I must have caught a punch when we were fighting the Wolves.” Ifan gently rubbed the place even as Fane was trying to get a glimpse of the problem. “I was meaning to ask how you felt about that. About it all.”

Ifan shrugged. “Not the only Wolves around.” But when she looked at him more closely, he sighed, “Look, Roost was Roost. May have been a good Wolf, but nowhere near an honourable man. We made Rivellon much safer, and between that and all the Godwoken contracts we found on him, I am not shedding a tear about it.” He looked around, kissing her head absent-mindedly. “I wouldn’t mind knowing where to find Alexandar so I can hand in mine but…”

“Alexandar’s reaching for Divinity, too. No question he’s going to be looking to Ascend soon, just like us. Which means we will cross paths sooner rather than later.”

“You’re right.” Ifan squared his shoulders. “And when we do, I will be ready.”

“You always are.” She put her hand on his chest.

He looked down at her and smiled. “Truth is, I knew our visit to Roost would end with his death ever since you found out he was the one who sold you to the Master.”

“And you helped me get to him anyway.”

Ifan shrugged, maybe slightly abashed. “It was an honourable cause.”

“It was revenge.”

“Yes, but a well-deserved one.”

Sebille nodded, looking out at the jagged horizon painted in late afternoon purple. “I only wish we’d killed him before he ever opened his accursed mouth.”

“At least you know where the Master is now.”

“And yet excitement is far from my heart.”

Ifan squeezed her arm a little more. “Nobody expects you to be excited to face him.”

“Do they expect me to be scared? Because I am.” She looked up at him with those large wolf-like eyes. “I am _terrified_.”

“You’ll find no judgment here,” Fane said. “I would be too, in your position. To know he could take control over you again with just a few words…”

“I just don’t want him to turn me on you lot.” Sebille blinked tears away, nuzzling into Ifan more. Fane put his skeletal hand on her shoulder.

“We’ve been… planning for that possibility.”

“What?” She pulled away to stare at both of them in surprise.

“Yes, the three of us. Should your living scar get activated, we have already agreed on precautions to disable you. And then we will carry on fighting until we’ve disabled him, too.”

Sebille wasn’t sure if what she felt was outrage or relief. Ifan hesitantly reached out to take her hand and she latched onto his, looking up at him. “I will kill him for you,” he said solemnly. “If it comes to it. If you can’t do it yourself.”

She only nodded, but there was no question that at least a small part of her anxiety was gone. They were right: she wasn’t alone. She was afraid of the Master controlling her again because that would keep her from fulfilling her mission—but she forgot there were people who would complete it for her, should she fall, or worse. The Master will die, one way or another. But then… She truly wished to be the one to look him in the eye and stab her needle in it.

“If it comes to that, I agree,” she said. “But we mustn’t let it get to it.” She shuddered at the very memory of being overtaken. “We must all figure out ways to silence him—and whoever gets the closest… He won’t be able to control me if he can’t sing the song.”

“I agree.” Fane said. “I have a couple of spells in mind. You’re getting really good at gagging them, too.”

She sighed. “Don’t rely on me. I can try, but… It will really depend on which one of us gets the chance to get a jump on him first. We must all be prepared. But I can teach you how to gag them?” She looked hopefully to Ifan.

“Of course. And the Princeling?”

Sebille chewed her lip. “Assuming that he’ll stay with us long enough…” Ifan and Fane exchanged glances again but said nothing. “I think we might be able to fashion a grenade. Or a scroll? I’ll… look into it later.” She sighed, looking again to the top of the ridge where the carriage stood. “We should probably be getting back.”

Ifan held her in place and pulled her into his arms again. “Are you sure you’re ready to see him?”

She took a deeper breath. “Nothing to be done, right?”

“I would like to gently reiterate my arson idea,” Fane suggested softly and Sebille chuckled again, but her smile soured quickly.

“It’s just… complicated. I don’t blame him for wanting it. Hell, I just was faced with a choice to possibly restore my own race to its former glory and I didn’t even hesitate.” She looked between them. “Any of us would do the same if faced with such a duty. It’s… important, of course it is. I can’t deny him that. But… Does he have to be so bloody happy about it?”

They spent a couple of more hours in their little hideaway, using the time to eat a filling dinner and laugh about Sebille’s affinity for tomatoes. They only returned after the sun decidedly moved down towards the horizon and threatened to leave them all in the dark. Upon their return, they immediately noticed two things: Red and Sadha were just leaving the carriage, hand in hand, with no care in the world, _and_ there were considerably more lizards on the ridge than before. Sebille’s face instantly dropped into a scowl as she put her hands on her weapons, walking towards the carriage.

“I fucking knew it,” she grumbled on the way and Ifan sighed, following her to get into some sort of a formation that would include the Prince.

“Well, well, well, look who’s coming up for air!” One of the lizards stepped forward and only then did Sebille see the resemblance to the ‘Imperial’ guard clearly not quite as Imperial as they originally thought. She tried to catch Red’s eye to warn him but he was too focused on the new arrivals, glaring daggers at them now. The pallid lizard only smirked, unfazed. “Mighty powerful noises I heard coming from that there carriage. Teensy bit jealous, I am.”

“I told you we should have set it on fire,” Fane muttered under his non-existent breath. Sebille cast him a lenient but silencing glance.

Red was already reaching for his own sword. “You will bow before us and explain this intrusion, or by the Seven I will cut you down where you stand!”

The pallid lizard sneered in a mocking cackle. “My oh my,” he said dramatically, as if it was all a very interesting plot twist, “you didn’t tell lover boy anything, did you, dollface? Naughty, naughty!” One glance from Sebille towards Ifan and he was readying his crossbow. This was going to get ugly, fast. “You’ve been played for a fool, little prince. She’s sworn to another! That’s right… Your boo is betrothed to a very different kind of king… All she needed from you was a dollop of prophecy juice.” Sebille’s face twisted in a disgusted grimace at the choice of words. “I dare say she got it.”

“You utter villain!” Sadha clearly wasn’t too happy about the euphemisms either. But that did not even compare to the amount of ‘unhappiness’ Sebille felt at the very thought they were about to fight five lizards armed to the teeth because Red refused to listen to her.

She shook her head, glaring straight at him. “Looks like the ‘secret of your soul’ betrayed you.”

“You hold your damn tongue!” he lashed out, turning to Sadha. Sebille raised her brow but drew her weapons, nodding at Fane to do the same. Ifan’s crossbow was already in his hands, bolt notched, just waiting to be let fly. Was she seeing things, or did the lizard commander just wink at her?

“Time for you and your belly full of litter to crawl back to the king, darling!” Well, as abhorrent as he was, she could at least appreciate the lack of care for words he exhibited. Even if he was about to die. “Gonna get me some private time with prince charming myself!” He grinned, showing rows of sharp teeth, his voice suddenly predatory as he said, “I’ve always had a soft spot for red meat!”

Both of the pallids lunged at Red and he slammed against the carriage, forced to defend himself. Before Sebille knew it, the ‘Imperial’ guard was on top of her, reaching for either one of her weapons even as he tried to pommel her with his sword. Ifan shot him off of her and instantly turned to rain bolts down at the spell-caster behind the carriage. Except Sebille could swear there were two lizards there before. Where did the other one go? Sadha seemed to have disappeared as well—did he whisk her away or was he somewhere around?

The guard proved to be more of a challenge than she expected, especially when she was spread thin between healing spells, summon casts, and her own daggerwork. Fane eventually laid him down almost by himself—but at the cost of both his mental and physical strength fading fast.

“Sebille…!” he called for help, but there wasn’t much she could do. “I’m… out of potions…”

She cursed under her breath. “Can you cast?” Fane only shook his head, falling to his knees. She had one poison spell on a scroll which they kept for a dark hour just like this, but she’d never even looked at it before. And she didn’t have safe space and time to learn it properly. And if she attempted to teleport Fane away… he might not make it anyway. “Ifan? Anything?”

The man was already making his way over, trying, and mostly failing to dodge the spells. “I used up my poison bolts on the Wolves. Sorry, Seb.”

Sebille gritted her teeth, pulling the scroll out. “Cover me, you two! Red! You need to cover me!” She was at Fane’s side in an instant, already unrolling the scroll. Ifan stood nearby, shooting at anything that dared approach too close. But he was but one man. “RED!”

No response. Squaring off against the two lizards, he completely ignored her. She gritted her teeth and focused on the scroll. Fane was doubled over and wheezing—there was no time for anything else.

“Just hold on…” she muttered as her eyes darted over the scroll. She was gasping for breath herself by the time the spell was done. New ones, especially geomancing ones, always took more out of her. But at least Fane was now veritably dripping with poisoned ooze, drawing— “Whoa!” She dropped to the ground and rolled, narrowly avoiding a blade that sliced the air right where her neck was just a split second ago. The fifth, missing lizard had just traded his invisibility for that chance, and was it not for her reflexes, he would have succeeded. And she couldn’t help but feel none of that would have happened if only her flank was covered. “Bloody hell, Red!”

“I have my own problems and you want me to look after you as well?” he spat over his shoulder, blocking another blow. Spells cast in bulk by the other lizard were seeping through his armour. She could see him shivering from where she stood, his skin darkened under the metal plates.

“How about you do a head count before the fight and keep an eye on the enemies instead so I don’t get fucking jumped when I’m trying to keep you lot alive?” she said even as she cast magic armour to cover him from the spells, prompting the battlemage to turn on Ifan instead. Red looked appreciative for a split second. “Ifan! Pin him down!”

Ifan jumped into the air, sending an arrow straight at the lizard’s leg, almost taking it off. Once Sebille managed to get the Disappearing Act on the ground with his tendons _and_ throat slit by her dagger, the remaining two were quick work. She came up to Red, staring out at the battlefield, clutching a silk handkerchief.

“Sadha! Where have you gone?” he breathed, jerking out of it as Sebille walked into his field of vision, only calming down when he noticed where she was looking. “She gave me this handkerchief. Something to remember her by.” _Of course she did,_ Sebille thought with a silent groan. “Who would have thought so soon would come our parting? The longing of a lifetime squeezed into a few short hours of perfection… only to end with blood and bereavement.”

“Me, for one?” She would be gagging at the inclinations of his words were she not so godsdamn angry. “I told you something wasn’t right. And she clearly plays some sort of part, however small, in all this. She’s sworn to another, remember?”

It all happened so fast, for a second she thought maybe she imagined it. But no—he did raise his hand for a blow, and she reflexively put hers up to block it. He was so, so lucky he didn’t go through with it, though still, her other hand was comfortingly wrapping its fingers around her needle. “Did you just--?”

“Be gone,” he spat, striding away. “Your very face is poison to me.”

For a moment, Sebille did consider going after him just to give him a piece of her mind, but she decided against it. Dusk was falling fast. They still needed to clear the field and find a place to rest. And more importantly, she’d had more than enough of Red for one day.

She turned back to Ifan and Fane, helping them with their wounds and the bodies. “We need to find shelter,” she muttered as they worked. Ifan stood straight and nodded across the river.

“We could use the sawmill. We did clear it.”

“There’s actual walls and a roof,” Fane added.

Sebille looked over, considering. “We could set up on the deck, start a little fire. Chairs are already there for the watchmen, the rest of us can set up bedrolls inside. I like it.”

“Sounds cold, frankly,” Ifan teased, raising a brow at her, but she didn’t notice, already focused on the solutions running through her mind.

“It’s not _that_ cold. Should be warm enough wrapped up in a roll. Definitely warmer than whoever is just going to sit there, looking around for hours on end.”

Ifan nodded, giving no indication that he had been joking, but seemed to have a little spring in his step when they finally set out on the way back. And yet, his voice was full of concern when he asked, “Should we go look for the Princeling?”

Sebille stopped and took a quick glance around. “I just did. He’s not here.”

Before she could move on, Ifan stood in her path. “Maybe we should _really_ find him before he gets ambushed by Voidwoken.”

Sebille stared Ifan right in the eye, her voice deadpan. “He seems to think he’s good enough to go it alone and leave us all to die, so I’m certain he can handle a Voidwoken or two alone. Come on.”

She could just about see Ifan and Fane exchanging glances over her head and she didn’t care enough to stop walking. She glanced back again, once they were across the river, to make sure there were no difficulties with the crossing, and she could see Red following, silently, at the back of the group. She sighed and shook her head.

Once she’d led them to the designated place, everybody, even the Prince, busied themselves with setting the camp up. Red got the fire going in seconds while she and Ifan windproofed the shelter and Fane spread the bedrolls. She watched the Prince out of the corner of her eye: and sure enough, once everything was set up, he sat at the fire, fiddling with Sadha’s handkerchief; Sebille couldn’t help another wave of nausea.

His list of sins was growing, and only over the last twenty-four hours, but her anger had simmered down some since the last time they butted heads. Since he nearly lashed out at her. She could barely stand him already: had he gone through with it, she wasn’t sure if anybody would be able to salvage any trust. And yet, part of her could understand him. It didn’t take much effort to imagine how she’d feel if someone—for example, Red himself—took something that was so important to her—for example, her hunt for the Master, or the memories she had about him—and spoke of it the way she spoke of Sadha. Even if it didn’t come to blows, it would have been so, so close. Too close.

And he was right in one regard: she was the leader of their group. “Our group,” he’d said. Under the pressure of time and emotions, he did count himself amongst them, and that had to mean something. Recognising her—another step in the right direction. But as the leader, she didn’t only get to order them around, successfully or not. She had to have different priorities, different reactions. She had to be worthy of the title.

She approached him with soft steps, so as not to startle him out of whatever state he was currently in. “Perhaps you ought to get some sleep?” He didn’t look up, but his head jerked slightly at the sound of her voice. “You have every right to be exhausted. I can take first watch.”

He shook his scaly, spiked head. “No, I shall take it. I don’t imagine I would be able to sleep either way.”

Sebille took the seat next to him and gazed at the fire. “Frankly, neither would I.”

Before she could say another word, Ifan grabbed his crossbow and urged Fane to get up. “We’ll go secure the perimeter,” he said in his soldier voice, “make sure we didn’t miss anything or anybody.”

And he pulled Fane along as he quickly stepped away, even as Fane asked, “We will?”

Sebille smiled as she watched them disappear behind one of the buildings, but their absence only made Red’s presence that much more pressing. It was just them now, and the conversation they needed to have.

She took a deeper breath. “Look, Red…” He jerked again, this time setting his eye on her. Right. _Now_ he’s following orders. She chewed on her lip, trying to ignore the way her heart sped up under his gaze, as she said, “I’m sorry for the things I said. They were… insensitive at best. A lot has happened today and I don’t think I have been handling it particularly well, so I took it out on you. And the truth is, you just made an out-of-character mistake because you were distracted, which you had every right to be. And I shouldn’t have punished you for it the way I did.”

Red was silent for a while, like he was mulling over her words in his head. His face was stone. Sebille gazed into the fire, wishing it could somehow help her hide how unreasonably anxious she was feeling.

“…You were right, though,” he finally said. Sebille pulled her eyes from the fire to give him a surprised look, but he was avoiding it even as he continued, “I was too mad to think straight, and my mistake nearly cost you your life while you were only trying to save another’s.” Only then he forced himself to look at her, his gaze somewhat abashed. “I hope you can accept my sincerest apologies.”

Sebille nodded softly, too shocked for words. Since when did Red apologise for anything? He did seem sincere, more so than she’d ever seen him be before. Was this the real Red Prince or just another mask? Was he too tired, too devastated for games, or using grief as a shield? As soon as she confirmed her forgiveness, he turned back to that damned handkerchief; and Sebille couldn’t help but feel another wave of doubt settle upon her heart like a shroud. Whether she had reason to or not, she was growing to despise Sadha and it worried her immensely: she knew it was more than just her lies and the danger they put them in. And as much as Sebille didn’t want to face it, she knew deep down Red, whom she had not called ‘the Prince’ in her mind in far too long, was the centrepiece of the doubts and the loathing.

She gathered her courage with another deep breath before she spoke again, “…There was another reason why I was being so cold.” Red raised his head to look at her quizzically; under his gaze, every word burnt her tongue like Void-tainted meat. She truly could not carry that poison within her any longer. “…I found myself being… jealous.” She could not look him in the eye, so she tried to stare at the fire, but instead her eyes wandered to the silk he cradled in his hands. “Of… the time you spent in that wagon.”

The shock in his face rivalled hers from just a moment ago. Had he truly not noticed anything? Or did he just convince himself he hadn’t? Could he have been so blind? Even before the thought was finished, Sebille knew she had seen ample proof that yes, indeed he could, but still, somehow… She couldn’t help but feel she’d just opened a door she would never be able to close again. Red blinked twice, his jaws falling open for just a split second before he uttered, “Err, I—”

“Don’t.” She instantly raised her hand. She was not ready for that. “No. I… It’s been a long day. And right now is the epitome of ‘not the time to be getting into whatever this is’. I just… wanted you to know that I’ve recognised this and it pains me that I allowed it to contribute to this entire situation. So…” He was shaking his head as if to stop her, but she would not let him get a word in. If she paused now, she might never say what she truly needed to say. As the leader of _their_ group. “The only thing I can do now is promise that despite all that, I will do my best to help you find her again.” She wondered if he could hear the beats her heart skipped like a stumbling, wounded animal.

Red swallowed hard, eye never leaving hers. His voice was soft and all but cracking as he said, reverently, “Thank you.”

Sebille could feel the weight lifted from her shoulders threaten to squash her brain and heart both. His gaze was too heavy to take but she couldn’t turn away or pull back. No. There was only one way to go.

She slowly, hesitantly wrapped her arms around his shoulders, half expecting him to push her aside… but he did not. Instead, he folded his strong hands around her waist and draped his neck over hers until she was fully enveloped in his embrace. He smelt like well-maintained steel stained only with blood; the faint scent of Sadha’s robust perfume still stuck to his scales. But there was also something else, something she could not quite define, as if the aroma of his very flesh drifting out from under his skin, but it made her heart race and tears well up in her eyes. She blinked them away, finally pulling back, reluctantly despite the pain of his heart beating against her chest.

He seemed somewhat embarrassed when she looked at him, but his lips were curled in a warm smile nonetheless. “We’ve become… very good friends, haven’t we?” The way he was looking at her, she doubted it was exactly what he intended to say, but her pulse sped up either way. “Yes,” he added, as if to convince himself. “Very good friends.”

Sebille swallowed hard, trying to force back the torrent of emotion his words and gaze inflicted on her: doubt, hope, excitement, hurt, and the slithering anger. “That’s quite a swift change from being a ‘poison’ to you,” she remarked.

If Red’s embarrassed expression was but a possibility before, it just moved into the sphere of certainty. “Friends fight, don’t they?” he muttered before finally glancing back up at her. “I hope you know it was said in ire. I did not mean a word of it.”

He did know the words were hardly the worst part of that exchange? She gave him a wry smile. “…I wish I did. But it was almost _too_ easy to believe after everything else you’d said today.”

Red nodded, understanding crushing his shoulders as he averted his gaze again. “I admit that I… It’s been a difficult day, for all of us. And perhaps… perhaps I do often say one thing when I would like to say another for I fear what saying it would entail.”

Sebille’s heart skipped a few beats again and jumped right into a hammering pace. It almost felt like… a revelation? The other side of all the things he’d said was… And why would he be afraid? And why admit it now? Was he trying to hide a weakness? Or was he just scared of committing fully to what they were trying to do? It almost felt like a slip of the tongue when he counted himself amongst their group. And he refused to admit even to himself there were times where he had to depend on anybody but himself, and the more he was faced with that reality, the harder he fought against it. Like today, when it became painfully apparent he would never have reached Sadha had they not fought the Lone Wolves together.

It all somehow made sense, in a twisted way. His love for Sadha was easy, handed to him in a dream, almost as if on a silver platter. It was a fated certainty he did not need to question. And it wasn’t mistrust that laid at the foundation of his fear, Sebille was certain of that—inadequacy, perhaps? Or the knowledge of what will have to be done sooner rather than later? Was he worried he would grow too tethered to them to make the hard choices? Or just to her?

Just as she thought she’d managed to break through the mask of the lizard prince, she’d find another underneath…

But then, if all he’d said earlier was indeed just a mask he was hiding behind, it would mean he did care about them, even if he tried very hard not to, and most importantly, he did care about her. The way his strong arms felt around her body was still as fresh in her mind as if it was happening right now, and that scent… She took a deeper breath of fresh air like that would clear it from her nostrils. “I see.” There was nothing more she could think of saying as she stood up to avoid even accidentally glancing towards him. But just as she was about to walk away, she remembered one more thing. “Red?”

He looked back up, yellow gaze settling on her with thoughtful curiosity. “Hmm?”

“If you ever raise your hand on me again…” Sebille made sure her expression and tone both channelled all the rage she felt in the moment in question, “I _will_ remove it and feed it to the nearest Voidwoken.”

Red’s eyes widened in surprise and a flicker of righteous anger flashed through… but then instantly died out as they softened again. Was that… regret she saw in there? “…Yes,” he only said. “Yes, of course.”

A poor attempt at an apology, but she had to appreciate how ultimately nonchalant he seemed when faced with a threat of dismemberment. She hid a smile behind a curt nod. “…Good night, Your Highness.”

Whether he recognised the joke or not, she was too busy climbing into her bedroll to check.

It may have come across as insouciance, however it was hardly anywhere near that: he knew as well as the next prince that sort of loss of control was unacceptable, and to threaten a commander, and more significantly, a friend, with carnal abuse… There was no amount of rage he could have felt to excuse that. Had he raised a hand against his Emperor or Empress, he would be obligated to chew it off himself, and that would have been mercy. And why should this be any different?

Especially when, at the end of the day, she was right about that as well. Sadha had deceived him—a lie of omission perhaps, but a lie nonetheless. He rubbed the handkerchief ferociously. It wasn’t that he didn’t see it: but he _was_ trying his best not to dwell on it. There was a reason, for certain. And she never got the chance to explain. And… their love _was_ fated. Whatever the hardships, they would be together. And he knew if nothing else, she at least believed that, too.

Sebille didn’t. He knew that much as well. Dreams had no bearing for her. And yet she did make the promise to help him find Sadha, no matter how hard it had to hurt. He was still reeling from her confession. There was only one reason why she would be jealous… He would have never guessed. He may have _hoped_ but— No. She may have wished to take Sadha’s place, but Sebille never believed in their love. She would have thought, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that his encounter with Sadha was merely a physical experience. Thus, _that_ was truly what she was jealous of. She wanted a taste of him as much as he wanted one of her, just like he thought. They were just spending way too much time together.

The only question remaining was: should he allow it?

He could hear her unsettled breathing coming from inside the pavilion, and the rustling of her bedroll when she turned from side to side. At least _she_ was true to her word—she could not fall asleep. And sure enough, not long passed before her bare feet slapped against the deck, accompanied only by a sigh. The Prince could imagine her sitting there with her head over her folded arms, considering her options. Part of him—and not a small part at all—hoped she would decide to come out and keep him company. They could spend the rest of the night on watch together: banter over the fire, keep each other awake, sane, _safe_. Make sure there were no more mistakes.

But instead, he heard Ifan’s surprised mumble and a string of noises that could only mean she was getting into bed with _him_. The Prince imagined his arms wrapping around Sebille’s fair, slender waist and pulling her close. “Hey, you all right?” Ifan asked sleepily.

The answer was no more and no less than a whimper which clawed at the Prince’s heart. “This is all too much. The Master, Scions, the Mother Tree…”

“The lizard and the other lizards…” Ifan offered. Sebille said nothing to correct him and the Prince couldn’t stop a flash of heat that went through him.

“How is it all connected? I cannot figure it out. It’s so complicated and yet feels like it boils down to something so simple that’s just beneath the surface and I can’t—”

Her voice was cut off by an evident kiss. The Prince inhaled sharply, wishing and hoping he would not have to hear the sounds of their coitus, and yet still listening more intently. But there was naught but silence after that, for the longest while, until Fane spoke up, very quietly: “…Did you just chloroform her?”

“She needs her rest,” Ifan replied in a similar whisper. “She can run herself up the wall during the day.”

Fane scoffed softly. “Well, it’s been nice knowing you.”

The Prince was not certain if he could say the same.


	8. Chapter 8

_“Are you two… playing dice?”_

_“No, I’m just proving how easy it is to cheat at them.”_

_“Wait, are those Fane’s finger bones?”_

_“What? Of course not!”_

_“Oh, good.”_

_“They’re his toes.”_

Sebille veritably _squealed_ when the waterfall came into view, and was halfway down and mostly naked before any of them could so much as open their mouths to object.

“She really does love a waterfall, doesn’t she?” Ifan muttered as Red Prince and Fane shared a defeated glance. They all slowly made their way down the slope, careful not to slip while Sebille shed her clothes faster than Ifan had ever seen before and, thoroughly naked, jump into the water. She emerged a minute later right under the waterfall, sputtering water like a happy, happy mare. The rest of them stayed on the bank, watching her frolicking in the lake, uncertain what to do next. Surely, it couldn’t be a good idea to drop all gear and play around, right?

“You seem happy,” Ifan said, sitting at the water’s edge eventually. “Surprisingly reckless, but…”

Sebille giggled swimming a tad closer to them. “We used to have a lake with a waterfall three trees away from the village where I grew up,” she explained. “Sometimes, I swear, I spent more time in it than I did doing anything else.”

“Nostalgia is a powerful force,” Red Prince said from where he stood, safe distance away from the water, almost as if he was afraid his perfect armour would rust. “But you must fight it, Sebille. We ought to be away.”

Ifan wondered how often he had to tell himself the same thing.

But Sebille only dove into the lake in response, completely disappearing from view for the longest while. When she finally emerged, she was glistening and grinning. “Come now. Surely we can spare a few minutes for a bath?”

“The way you’ve been going so far,” Ifan teased, “it’s looking like this is gonna last hours.”

“Why, are you bored already?” Sebille laughed with a wolfish grin and look, exposing herself a little more. Ifan squinted, as though he wasn’t overcome by a wave of heat just now, but Sebille saw right through him and her mischievous grin only widened. “If you want me to go anywhere, you’ll have to catch me first.”

Ifan relented with a heavy sigh as he unbuckled his leather armour. Sebille didn’t even try to hide the long look that lingered on his body when he remained only in his britches and shirt, too tight to hinder him as he jumped into the water. Seb tried to escape even as he dove right next to her, and for a minute full only of splashing and giggling, they chased each other around the small lake, pond really, until they were both out of breath with the laughter and the water. Her smile was as warm as the sunrays crashing against his skin and as radiant as the reflections the surface cast on their bodies. Even the lake itself was pleasantly cool as he submerged himself, stewing in the fresh smell reminiscent of filtered rock and flora, and the fiery sun itself.

He waited underwater, peaceful in the twinkling depths, until Seb came bounding nearby. She screamed and jumped and whirled around, splashing waves right in his face, but he was locked on target. “Come here, you sneaky minx,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist, but instead of pulling away, she only clung to him, grinning wildly, her breast splayed across his now translucent shirt, so thin with wear he could feel her heart thundering against his chest.

“Help me get the others in,” she huffed into his mouth, and as much as he didn’t want to think that they weren’t alone, he couldn’t say no to her eyes glistening with frivolity and the simple joy of being back in her favourite element.

Seb pretended to slither out of his grasp and dove again, and when he was pulled under at first, he really did sincerely flay around and scream for help. But then Seb clung back to him underwater and kissed him so deeply he couldn’t help but gasp. Coughing and choking, he emerged again, hoping the paleness would help with the ruse. “Help! She’s gone mad!” he managed to get out before getting pulled down again. Sebille was laughing even despite the time she’d spent underwater, before breaking through with a triumphant grin on her face.

“Any other challengers?” she shouted and the Prince, perfectly aware he was being so poorly played, rolled his eyes in leniency as he unbuckled his belt and allowed his breastplate to fall into the dirt. Sebille wagged her brows at him before she screamed and disappeared under again, this time clearly not of her own volition, and the water stirred and rippled with whatever fight she was having with Ifan under the surface. They both came up, laughing like children, when the Prince was in to his waist already.

“I’m shocked you can even swim,” she said, watching with some awe as he determinedly stepped even deeper and closer in.

“Of course I can,” he lied and just as the water was reaching the peak of his chest, he lunged for her ankle. Sebille squealed and threw herself under again, but he was too fast. She laughed like a lunatic as he dragged her out of the water by her leg, her tears of mirth mixing with the warm water, and Ifan following close behind with a near-perfect breaststroke, clearly enjoying the view.

The Prince wasn’t entirely certain what happened when they got to shore, but he knew without a doubt it was Fane’s doing. Just as he was glancing behind to give Sebille a piece of his mind, his body turned and skidded against his will, and in the next instant, he was on top of her; he tried his best to balance himself without touching her, but in this predicament, his tail was only a hindrance, and Sebille’s bare chest heaving underneath him as she giggled, did not help his focus at all. Nor did her gleeful expression, or her eyes dilated with delight, or the lengthy glance they gave him as he scrambled to right himself, as though she had only noticed him there in that very moment. The way she looked at him, huffing with joyful exertion but glancing across his face and down to his lips while her own fell slightly open… Well, suffice to say the Prince suddenly couldn’t recall what he was supposed to do.

Sebille’s eyes finally slipped close before she looked away, sighing ostentatiously. “Fiiine,” she said exasperated, clearly pretending she was not wet, naked, and pressed to the grass by the Prince’s own body. “I suppose we can go now.”

Did she suggestively wag her brow at him before she rolled from beneath him? The Prince collected himself from the ground in a completely ignoble manner and retrieved his armour while Ifan exchanged exultant glances with Fane, and Sebille, an obvious spring in her step, led them back towards their ship, gathering up and putting on her own garments as she walked. If she felt any regret or shame about the situation they had just found themselves in, she did not let it show.

He didn’t even know why he was so sulky. He had a notion or two, of course, but after all, they were hardly her fault. And yet, when Seb found him again after he’d let himself disappear into the vast insides of Lady Vengeance, she did so only because the crossbow he was restringing accidentally fell from under his foot and slammed loudly against the lower deck. Before he could gather the mess up and relocate again, Seb was standing in the narrow doorway with her arms crossed, watching him with benign interest.

He couldn’t be certain how they came to be in the captain’s cabin, slamming against bookshelves and railings, kissing madly and tearing each other’s clothes off as they stumbled to the bed. Her skin like soft, warm bark under his fingers, her lips scattered across his body, backs arching, hips bucking, moans strewn in the salty air; she cried out every time he bit down on her shoulder, and he groaned in pain every time her claws raked up his tender thighs. Wild and untamed, they mated like wolves in the dark, insensate, perfect woods—violently, feverishly, furiously, luridly. And he loved every single scream and gash, and flame, and touch, and tear. He loved her.

And later, when they lay in the semi-dark cabin smelling of the sea and each other, the heavy black curtains barely billowing from the calm-wave breeze as they sailed for the Nameless Isle he did not care to find at all, Ifan wrapped his arms oh-so-tight around Sebille, as though that could save them from the choices they were bound to be forced to make.

“Are you all right?” she asked then, voice quiet and strained when he hugged her so hard it felt like her ribs would crack; and yet she wouldn’t even shift or attempt to move away.

He kissed the top of her head as he nodded. Burying his face in her hair, he tried to make sense of the muddle of thoughts swirling unpleasantly in his head, and failed, and tried, and failed again. Until, at last, he whispered, “What was it like growing up near a lake?”

She pulled her head out from beneath his chin to look up at him and he could see it all written clearly across her face: the surprise at his sudden question, the moment of searching for the right words, and the inevitable realisation that the reason he was asking was because he had himself been raised in a desert town. He hid a scoff behind a sigh. He probably had more in common with the Princeling than her. But then why did she feel so right?

Sebille laid a hand on his cheek and smiled softly, comfortingly. “I don’t really know how to describe it in human words.”

Ifan let himself lean into her touch, even though he knew very well she was lying. She had more words than he could ever have. She could tell him any story from the Forest she wished—but perhaps she knew that in this moment hearing of opportunities he had been devoid of himself would likely only make him feel worse? Could she have known him so well, better than he knew himself, enough to lie to his face, while he still felt like a child in the fog every time he was with her?

And it was suffocating.

“I need some fresh air.” He laid a firm kiss on her forehead and slipped out of bed. She didn’t try to stop him.

Fumbling with his breeches, he climbed up the stairs to the deck. He was never one for sea travel—the impression of constant imbalance, the swaying which seemed to be there even when one couldn’t feel it, the wind that, even while so refreshing, was unnaturally heavy with salt and the odour of seaweed—but today, the chill was like soothing balm on his heated skin. The nearly empty deck of the ship which sailed itself would typically be a welcome sanctuary on any other occasion—but as he stepped out from below, he was greeted by Fane’s monotonous, scratchy voice reading aloud from what looked like one of Huwbert’s encyclopaedias he carried around. Red Prince was on the other end of the little table strewn with pages upon pages and ink and charcoal; but on closer inspection, they seemed to be playing an impromptu and unspoken game, wherein the Prince was challenged to sketch out whatever Fane was reading about and barely slowing down, if at all.

“The Siren in addition to its womanly body, possesses a pair of impressive horns,” Fane was reading now, “as well as a row of sharp triangular teeth in each jaw, elongated ears, and silky, bark-like skin…”

Red Prince gave a groan and put his stylus down with a thump. “I distinctly remember having read that, and that _certainly_ wasn’t included.”

“Perhaps an amendment was…?” Fane began but then only waved his skeletal hand as he burst into a hearty chuckle at his own joke while the Prince leniently shook his head and crumpled the drawing into a ball he promptly threw overboard.

Ifan had every intention of leaving them to their devices—but as he walked by, Red Prince looked straight at him with an inscrutable expression. “Ifan.”

“Red Prince.” Ifan gave a curt nod in reply and turned away to rest his elbows on the ship’s railing. He didn’t see a reason to engage. Whatever the Princeling’s problem was, he could deal with it alone. Not that it was difficult to make an educated guess. He and Seb had been having their thing for a while now, and Ifan and Fane had been pulled into whatever it was a long time ago. That, along with the moment they had shared at the lakeside earlier today, and the fact that it was now Ifan, not the Prince, standing shirtless on deck, gave a sufficient explanation for the cold glances and the overly polite curtness. Ifan could vaguely sympathise—he didn’t like the situation any more than the Prince did, and it was a tricky one—but he also recognised, that Sebille was stuck in it as much as they were and it was no less complicated for her. Ifan wished for nothing more than to make it easier on all of them, but he could hardly cure her of whatever affliction the Prince had inflicted on her, and it wasn’t his place to tell her heart who to fall in love with. All he could do was be there for her expecting nothing in return, and hope, only _hope_ , that she would, perhaps, one day grow to love him, too.

In the meantime, however, they had a job to do, and their own goals to achieve to boot. They couldn’t allow for anything to hold them back now, especially not petty internal feuds over things that would only endanger their mission if allowed to continue. If he’d learnt anything in his time as a Divine Order officer, it was that tensions in one’s team could be no less than disastrous in a life-or-death situation. They _had_ to find a way to work together, to trust each other despite their differences and the obvious, mutual animosity stemming only from boyish egotism and jealousy over the only woman they could both have relations with. Who, to make it all harder, clearly didn’t believe in exclusivity. No, there was no point waiting for Sebille to help sort this particular problem out.

And he couldn’t exactly sit the Prince down and have a heart-to-heart with him either. No… There was only one way to go now.

He whipped around and pranced back to the table, standing right next to the Prince, challenge in his eyes. “For a prince and a supposedly great tactician, you don’t care too much for team work, do you?” he almost spat.

“Excuse me?” The Prince looked up at him, slits in his eyes narrowing. Fane stopped reading and watched them with cautious interest. “How dare you—”

“Save it.” The Prince’s crests bristled at the blatant interruption but he remained seated. “You pretend you have what it takes to be the leader of this party, like you’re only letting Seb go first out of the goodwill of your gentlemanly heart, but we both know you’ve been going it alone these past few battles.” Ifan was veritably hovering over the Prince now. “You’re no leader. And you’re supposed to be a warrior, and this is how you spend your time?” He scoffed, flipping over one of Red’s sketches.

The Prince stood up, standing straighter so his head would hang above Ifan’s, forcing him to take a step back to maintain eye contact. “I will have you know the arts are an essential element of one’s personal development towards excellence. But I am not surprised a provincial _boy_ like you would have a difficult time believing that. I’m frankly shocked you can even understand my speech.”

Ifan scoffed even more ostentatiously now. “Let’s see how your art helps you next time we get attacked by a band of giant Voidwoken. I’d love to watch how you _sketch_ them to death.”

“The only reason I would even have the time to pursue the higher arts is because my combat skills are already superior.”

Ifan stepped even closer, getting in the Prince’s face. “Then _prove_ it, pretty boy.” He moved away towards the middle of the deck. “Let’s see who the ‘superior’ fighter is.” He took position in the middle of a large enough clear space and turned back to the Prince with disdain on his face and lips. “Wrestling spar, right now.”

The Prince scoffed even as he slipped out of his flowing silk vest and walked over. “I could take you down with one swipe of my claw.”

Ifan gave a wolfish smirk. “If you say so.”

He _was_ fast, Ifan agreed almost instantly. He managed to dodge the initial blow the Prince threw, but only barely, and he had a feeling it was merely a test anyway. Well. There was no backing down now. At least it would be interesting.

He had sparred with lizards before. They were agile but generally quite spindly and easy to overpower once one had made contact. But Ifan knew very well the Prince wouldn’t be that simple—aware of his natural shortcomings, he’d focused his past training on them. And if his two-handed swordsmanship was any indication, there was a lot of power hiding in those lean arms of his. Ifan’s best bet was to get one of them under control before going for the other one. He flicked to the side and lunged. The punch connected square with his jaw before Ifan could even tell where it came from. He sputtered blood as he staggered but the Prince was hardly done with him—grabbing him by the shoulders, he smashed his flat skull into Ifan’s. The world swam in his eyes but Ifan latched on for dear life to the Prince’s neck. For a long while, they were switching hold after hold, the Prince clearly trying to break free while Ifan looked for the best way to keep him in place. Even if his entire face was hurting now, at least he had him right where he wanted him now.

Still interlocked, they both managed to get a few more blows and kicks in before the euphoria hit them. Ifan’s laugh sounded scornful and the Prince’s smile was most certainly predatory, but their eyes were lit with the simple, primal glee of fighting with one’s hands, feeling one’s jabs landing and pain shooting up from all around. Before long, their sparring turned from a near-malicious fight to exhilarating, strangely satisfying exercise. Even if Ifan was losing miserably.

It didn’t take long for Sebille to realise that Ifan had lingered a while up on the deck. It took her far longer to gather the will to move, slip out of the warm bed and into a gown, and finally make her way after him. The sight of Ifan and Red however, both shirtless and covered in Ifan’s sweat, rolling around on the deck entangled in a wrestling match, was definitely worth the trip. Sebille looked over to Fane, who was clearly only pretending to be reading his book as he semi-sneakily watched the men. She sat next to him, wrapping herself tighter in her gown, goose bumps on her skin from the cold sea breeze. “How the hell did that happen?” she asked mostly to herself and Fane only shrugged noncommittally, as if he hadn’t been paying _that_ much attention.

If he was about to say something, he got interrupted by the sound of Ifan’s shriek as Red, in every way literally, _hurled_ the man across the deck until he smashed into the steps next to the table with a painful groan. His bare chest was covered in freshly swollen bruises and small splatters of blood watered down with sweat and spit; most of them came from his ruptured lip and brow which still spilt tiny waves of red with each strained beat of Ifan’s heart. He looked every bit like a man who had just gotten the living hell beaten out of him, but that didn’t stop him from flashing a cheeky grin as soon as he saw her sitting there. “Hey, Seb.” Panting, he glanced at the approaching lizard: Red didn’t seem fazed in the least, though perhaps it was just the nature of his scales masking the injuries. But still, Ifan’s grin widened even more. “I really had you on the ropes there.”

Red snorted something like a lenient scoff and instantly cringed, wrapping his hand around a bruised rib. “Indeed,” he said, inclining his head. Some blood came flowing out of his nostril and dripped onto the deck. “You were a good sport.”

Sebille shook her head as the men found their seats—Ifan turning over a nearby crate, Red bringing a barrel over—and leaned over each to examine their wounds. “That looks sore. Let me put you idiots back together.”

She was about to start weaving a spell straight away, but Ifan put his hand on hers. “It’s alright,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt as much.”

“Speak for yourself,” Red only muttered.

“I have a better idea.” Fane unceremoniously pulled a small barrel of beer from underneath the table. Uncorking the top, he poured one of their largest healing potions into it, sloshed it about, and set it in front of them. “Isn’t this simpler?”

“Must it be beer?” Red sighed. “We can surely do better than that.”

“No, we can’t!” Ifan’s inner soldier was vibrating with delight as he poured himself a tankard and gulped the whole thing down in one go. He looked around them only vaguely abashed, foam still dripping down his beard. Fane’s neck creaked as he shook his skull now but Sebille only shrugged, getting her own portion.

“Come, Red, you had worse things in that jaw of yours.” And with a wink, she slid a cup over to him.

The Prince, grimacing horribly, placed his long scaled fingers around it and gave the beer an uncertain sniff. Sebille was relentless, however, and pushed it ever so closer, with Ifan and Fane stifling laughs in the background. Finally succumbing, the Prince emptied the cup into his mouth and winced much the same way he did when Ifan had been punching him in the face. They could see the gulp of his reptile throat before he gave a loud, miserable groan.

Ifan, chuckling amiably, leant over the table to pat Red’s shoulder. “Now you’re truly one of us.” Red’s slitted eyes fixed on him with the stare of someone who was not in jesting mood. For a long, intense moment, space between them buzzed with uncomfortable silence; and then Red suddenly sighed and started chuckling under his breath, like he just couldn’t hold himself back anymore, like he finally rejected the princely lizard standards he had been clinging to for so long. Sebille grinned as she looked between the men, glad to see them laughing together. And the air, at last, was salty and light.


	9. Chapter 9

_Sebille raised her head from the letter she found and eyed Red with a mischievous yet somewhat impressed glint. “ **Four** petrified succubi?”_

_The Prince shrugged and looked away. “Perhaps I have omitted a few details…”_

“Only polite, I always say, to hear a man out before beheading him.” That’s what he’d said, and Sebille had laughed, but it weighed heavily on her mind as they were rowing to the island. She let her gaze roam freely, but it seemed to spend just as much time on the calm waves around them as it did on Red’s and Ifan’s muscles working with every stroke of the oars. Somehow, his words sounded precisely like something she’d say and yet worried her immensely all the same. And why should she care? If they killed that lizard from the House of Shadows, at least there would be no more assassins ambushing them at random intervals. Was this about Sadha again, about whatever information the Shadow Prince would have? She grimaced. She was spending too much time thinking about someone she had little but disdain for.

“A Magister dead on the beach,” Sebille said as they encountered the first corpse, or rather—what was left of it. If not for the remnants of the late man’s or woman’s clothing, she would never have figured who it belonged to. “What a surprise.”

“The seaside truly doesn’t agree with them, does it?” Red mumbled and Sebille choked with laughter more so than the smell of flesh rotting in the sun. Ifan cast the prince an honestly appreciative look of amusement. Fane scoffed, which was about as much as they usually got out of him.

She was wrong, however. It wasn’t _a_ Magister. The beach was littered with bodies or pieces thereof. Scraps of armour, cloaks, as well as emblems on shields painted a picture of Magisters and Paladins both decimated by a common enemy. Upon further exploration, they also discovered, though considerably less numerous, bodies of Black Ring followers, as expected after Almira’s warning. But that kind of carnage…

“Could it be the Black Ring is purging the Magisters?” Sebille muttered all but to herself after inspecting another dead.

Red sighed. “The plot thinnens.”

Sebille burst out laughing again, doubling over and nearly tripping over the corpse. Despite death and destruction and ghosts of the Eternals’ civilisation all around them, there was a spring in their step and the light feeling of companionship filled their hearts. They joked and bantered with one another as they walked, exchanging grins and glances, chuckling and chortling at themselves and one another.

But soon the corpses gave way to live people, enemies swarming the temples. And it seemed like every time they found a way to avoid confrontation, they ended up having to fight them again: like when using Almira’s information, they slipped into a small Black Ring encampment only to discover their wizard was using portal magic to flood the temple they had just been trying to access. He was the lucky one—Sebille slipped behind him and slit his throat and before he knew it, his body was being swallowed by the waves. The others, they had to fight; and an ugly fight it was. By the time they were done, the only proof of the encampment’s existence were frayed remnants of the tent flapping in the onshore breeze.

The first couple of temples were simple work if one could disregard the constant deadly threats, dusty crypts permeated with stuffy, ancient air, and mechanical contraptions beyond any understanding. “I’ve always wanted to explore an impish pocket realm,” Sebille had said as they entered the ruby gem, and Red had replied with, “Me too. This should be interesting.” It was not. It was horrifying and sickening, and the pungent stench of Deathfog still stuck to the metal around them long after they narrowly escaped its obliterating influence only thanks to Fane’s quick thinking and even quicker wizardry. In comparison, suffering a curse at Vrogar’s altar, one which Red promptly blessed away, seemed like a refreshingly pleasant descent into madness.

When they reached Rhalic’s temple, however, things got slightly more… complicated. Starting with the Black Ring pulling them into their fight with the Magisters which they had no option to refuse…

“Of course,” Sebille said, nodding in the most thrall-like way she could, but then extended her arm to stop the others from advancing too close. “Take it easy and hold back. Whoever survives will be easier to be rid of. We are here for the altar only, after all.”

…to the Knight of Rhalic mistaking them for _actual_ Black Ring thralls and accusing them a little too loudly of working with them…

“Don’t worry,” Sebille hissed to quiet her down. “They shall be next.”

…to a veritable massacre of the Black Ring followers as soon as they realised they were in fact Godwoken using the situation to access the altar…

“You want to die?! That can be arranged!”

…to, finally, Sebille praying at the altar as she did at the previous ones and promptly pulling away, eyes wide open in something resemblant of… shock? terror?

Red and Ifan were both at her side in an instant, trying to establish whether she needed any spiritual or physical treatment. “What’s wrong?” They looked at the altar, but no rune had appeared. Ifan frowned even more. “Seb?”

And she only sat there, back pressed to the cold slab of stone, shaking her head in horror. “He asked… He asked for my sight.” She gulped, thoroughly overcome by the magnitude of the sacrifices she was making for the sake of a reward she didn’t even care for. “I— No, I ca— I’m sorry…”

Ifan pulled her in close, folding his warm arms over her slender back. “Hey, it’s all right, Seb. We’ll figure something out.”

“I tried…” she breathed, gasping, then scoffed wryly. “But… I’m not human, am I? Why would he—”

“You’re right.” Ifan looked at her like she said something fundamental, and pulled away only to press his hands to the altar.

“Wh— Ifan, no!” Sebille’s attempts to stop him were just too little, too late. His eyes glazed over as he was pulled into the vision, unseeing and unfeeling to Sebille’s cold palms folding over both of his cheeks, as if that were to retrieve him from whatever hellscape the gods occupied here. But before she could think of anything else to do, Fane nodded towards the sun rune which appeared, blazing blue, on the stone. And in the next instant, Ifan’s eyes fluttered as he came to and promptly focused on Sebille’s face with perfect clarity. His lips curled into a cheeky smile.

“Hello, beautiful,” he teased. Sebille rolled her eyes even as she pulled him into a tight, tight embrace, too overcome with joy and relief to speak for a very long while. They passed the time intertwined, nuzzled into each other, revelling in how their bodies and souls alike connected on some primal yet divine plane.

“How did you know it would work?” Sebille asked, pulling back, flooded with relief again when Ifan’s green eyes looked back at her. “That he wouldn’t ask you for the same?”

He shrugged noncommittally. “I didn’t.”


	10. Chapter 10

_“Ah, Deathfog. Instant victory. I always applauded Lucian for using it.”_

_Sebille gave Red a swift glare, and, without sparing a second glance, turned and stormed away, jumping down the ledge they’d had to use magic to climb onto. The gate, however locked, was no match for her fury. Ifan shook his head and followed her in silence._

The Elven temple, ingrained into the earth and vegetation of the island, stood tall and mighty. After tricking the small troop of Black Ring into running straight into the screams of the Shriekers, they made their own way into the temple, welcomed by the Knight of Tir-Cendelius, merchants in all shapes and colours, and a few miscreants clearly seeking refuge. Sebille’s heart swole at the sight of the structure, so familiar and yet still so impressive, a true testament to the Elven magic that built it.

“Blessings be… I haven’t seen anything like this since the Deathfog struck.”

Ifan placed a hand on her shoulder as they stepped deeper into the cloisters and galleries of interwoven, twining vines and branches. Even Fane, the Eternals’ architecture still so fresh in his ancient mind, whistled at the beauty of the Elven one. The Prince looked positively struck. “There might be nothing like this left in the world,” he said softly, his eyes twinkling with the excitement of his inner scholar. “Not since Lucian used the Deathfog on the elves.”

Sebille’s jaw tightened and she cast a black look over her shoulder. He had no right to speak of the Deathfog, not after all the things he’d said about it before. But at least he had the decency to look remotely embarrassed for his unprompted opinions.

Alexandar and his Paladin and Magister lackeys were comfortably settled around the heart of the temple and Sebille’s teeth ground in indignance at the insult. Under any other circumstances, in any other part of the world, they wouldn’t be allowed any further than the middle level. And yet here they were, camping under the Mother Tree’s branches, perched happily on top of _her_ legacy. That alone was nearly enough to propel Sebille forward… but Ifan caught her by the shoulder before she could advance.

“You know how long I’ve sought Alexandar,” he said softly, looking her in the eye, his gaze pleading and vulnerable. “I need this.”

Sebille sighed. She could never refuse Ifan anyway. “I don’t mind you two talking,” she responded in kind, her resolve strengthening when she noticed Ifan’s fist clenched at his side so tight it was virtually white, “but I want him alive. He could be useful.”

His jaw was working but he nodded solemnly, like a good soldier. “Understood.”

Sebille hung back with Red and Fane, chewing on her lip as she watched Ifan lunge at Alexandar. Red huffed beside her. “Should we…?”

She shook her head resolutely. “No. I trust him.”

“Why?” Ifan growled, pain so clear in his voice Sebille’s heart was breaking more with every word. “ _Why_ did you and Lucian send me on a suicide mission to kill the elves?” The crack in her chest was nothing compared to the roll of thunder in her mind. She’d known Ifan was part of the Divine Order during the Deathfog attack practically since they first met, but this… “ _Why_ did you lie to me?”

Oh, gods.

Alexandar shook with pain and rage as he cradled his face and hissed, “Why? The same reason we did everything… to protect the realm. What price all of Rivellon against just one portion?” _Those were MY people!_ , she wanted to scream, but the words choked in the back of her throat as she staggered. Were it not for Red’s arm wrapping around her to hold her up, she would have been on her knees already. And Alexandar only continued his blasphemies, as though completely unaware he was standing in the only place remaining of the culture he and his father had wiped out without so much as a second thought. “Any Divine would do the same… if it meant saving _everything_.”

 _No! No true Divine would!!_ Sebille could faint with the weight of truth bearing down on her, bones and limbs contorting under its might; she couldn’t take it, not like this, not in here, not with the knowledge that son of a whore could very well be their only chance to get through this in one piece, to no less than save the world… ‘Saving everything’? Her people were gone! Decimated, slaughtered, forced into slavery or life of abuse and degradation among the humans who’d destroyed them… And the Black Ring? Still laying siege to temples, breaking islands in half, torturing enemies, coming back to life… Naught was saved but all were condemned. ‘Saving everything’… She should drag Alexandar’s arse to the Sallow Man—nay, she should drag him down to Tir-Cendelius’s altar, saw his head off with her teeth, feed her ears on his screams and the Mother Tree’s heart on the blood of his ‘Divine’ betrayal. That was what she should do. And she would… if only she could move. If only there were not so much at stake.

The thought those were likely the last words in Lucian’s mouth before he gave the order nearly knocked her off her feet.

Little did she know that wasn’t even the worst of it yet.

“You should be proud my father picked you—his best right-hand man. He knew you would make it.” Sebille grew limp in Red’s arms. Was that why Ifan joined her? Why he helped her? Why he loved her?... He was not only part of the Divine Order; he was part of its leadership. No, he was the one who unleashed the horror that wiped out the Forest. Lucian’s lieutenant. Lucian’s confidante. Lucian’s _executioner_.

How could she not have seen this before? How could she have been so blind?

How could she have trusted a human?

If Ifan glanced at her, showed any remorse, made an attempt at an apology—she was too blind with rage to see it. Fane closed his skeletal hand around hers, stifling the sparks of elemental energy that threatened to spill from her palm. She could not tell if her cheek was hot because of the pain in her living scar or the scorching fury growing in her heart like a blazing abyss, swallowing the entire world, drowning out every sensation and impulse, focused solely on the two men still measuring each other with hostile, piercing eyes, and on all the things she would love to do to them.

She knew this anger well. She had felt it before, raging like a firestorm inside her heart at the first note of the infernal melody used to enslave her, and yet still sparking far too slow; she had grown to love it, learnt how to direct it and use it, to translate it into gambits and manoeuvres, schemes to manipulate others to do her deadly bidding. She remembered fondly how it pushed against the walls of her many prisons, threatening to bring them down through the sheer force of will, how it drove her forward even when she was ready to fall, how it protected her in her darkest hours. It was that fury that opened her eyes to the Mother Tree’s ploy, that broke the chains which bound her to the Master, that delivered them from Fort Joy. That blinding, seething, glorious, beloved fury.

Red wrung her arm so hard the pain sobered her up, and still only enough to hear him hiss against her skull, “You will stand up straight and start hearing with both ears and seeing with both eyes, or by the Seven, I will drag you out of here and drown you in a cold creek until you calm down.”

That he dared to speak to her in such a way, like she was an unruly child, or worse, only ignited her rage more, but it was also a distraction which allowed her to see the wide-socketed gaze Fane was treating her to and the unearthly tension in the air Alexandar was still only adding to as he carried on, as if enamoured by the sound of his own voice, “…if he told you the truth, you would falter. He knew you well, Ifan. He knew _you’d_ have to be tricked. But _I’m_ his son. I can be trusted to the end. And I will take any actions necessary, for the good of all. Nothing can stop me… not even death!”

And then Sebille finally saw it, with both her eyes. Alexandar was unhinged, even more so than usual, likely by his near-death experience on Lady Vengeance. And in his arrogance and unwavering belief in Lucian’s flawless ingenuity, he was also very, very dangerous. There was no question about it. He would _not_ outlive his usefulness by a second.

And Ifan? His gaze darker than she’d ever seen before and expression a perfect mixture of rage and despair, he looked like he was going to be sick; but his hands were as steady as ever when he slowly, methodically loaded a bolt into his crossbow. He glanced painfully towards her: their eyes met and Sebille could see the moment he broke, truly believing there was no reason for him to stop himself, nowhere for him to turn back to. And suddenly, the rage she’d felt about him having unleashed the Deathfog morphed into a pang of anguish and betrayal that he could think a swine like Alexandar would be able to burn the bond they had with but a few words. “Death stops everyone eventually,” Ifan said in the calmest, emptiest of voices. “You rose from the dead once. You won’t rise this time.”

And though every ounce of her being _screamed_ to let Ifan go through with it, yearned to watch Alexandar’s blood painting the floor of the temple he’d desecrated, she knew she couldn’t. She had a responsibility to see them through this safely and if Alexandar could in any way increase their chances, she had to use it. So when Ifan moved towards him with a mission in his eyes, she stood straighter and called, “Ifan, stop. Now.”

He paused and looked around; their eyes met for a brief moment of tension, and she could see in his gaze the surprise and the flickering, growing hope that perhaps what Alexandar had revealed wasn’t going to be the bane of their relationship, whatever that might be. She nodded ever so slightly and Ifan’s face broke into a wide smile that made her heart beat faster, before he said, resolutely, “For you, I can stop. For you, I can trust.”

Sebille didn’t even try to hold back. She scaled the distance between them in just a few steps and pulled him into a passionate embrace, her lips seeking out his just as his sought out hers. The kiss was almost as searing hot as Sebille’s rage had been but a moment ago and almost as painful in its perfection as Red’s claws in her arm. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the Magisters and Paladins turning their gazes away, flustered or outraged by the shameful display. And she could not care less.

Ifan pulled away, the smile still lingering on his lips, even as he threw Alexandar a dismissive glance and went over to join Red and Fane where they held vigil some paces back. Sebille moved forward instead, the scowl on Alexandar’s face deepening with her every step.

“If you have something to say, Sourcerer, just spit it out.”

She scoffed. That was unnecessarily hostile. “I’m marvelling. Last I saw of you, you were in a coma aboard the Lady Vengeance.” She raised her brow, revelling in the minute changes passing through Alexandar’s human face. “What happened, pray tell?”

He puffed out his chest. “My destiny was revealed to me in the Hall of Echoes—at last. I realised how Dallis had been sabotaging me all along.”

 _Took you long enough._ Sebille did consider delving further into the matter, just to see what the man’s thinking could possibly have been, but she didn’t think she’d be able to handle it anyway. There were more pressing matters at hand. “You’re not the only Godwoken who could ascend,” she sifted the words through her teeth, watching Alexandar’s jaw clench further with each syllable. “So what makes you think that you should be Divine, above all others?”

He bristled. “I was born for this duty—as long as he lived, my father groomed me to take his place, to speak for the Gods…!” Alexandar clearly had his father’s overinflated ego. “And make no mistake—Divinity is a duty, not a reward.” …And the patronising attitude to boot. “Others may be able to claim the mantle, but only I can shoulder the burden, the responsibility…”

 _You can’t even walk three steps without an entire entourage…_ Sebille hid the roll of her eyes behind her eyelids. What an unbelievably insufferable buffoon. But maybe he could be tricked into doing his part. “Perhaps we should work together to enter the Council. The trials within can decide who will become the Divine.”

“Make no mistake, Godwoken—I do not _need_ to work with you. I will enter the Council when I am fit and ready…” _Yes, cowering behind a bunch of Shriekers at the back of a temple is clearly doing wonders for you._ “But _you_ are desperate—that much is clear.” It took everything Sebille had not to break Alexandar’s nose in a few more spots just for that. “Make yourself of use to me, and I shall help you unlock the Council. You must strike down the one who leads the Black Ring on this island—that is my price.”

Did he think she was stupid? Probably yes. She sighed, rubbing her eyes. He wasn’t fooling anybody, except, maybe, for his brainwashed lackeys. It took most of her willpower not to murder him where he stood already—and now he was making demands?

That was not to say she had any intention of letting the Sallow Man live—he was an obstacle on her and her companions’ way to Divinity as much as he was to Alexandar’s. But to get to the Sallow Man… She glanced at Alexandar again. She had better things to do than to get involved in that conundrum. “Why don’t you just get rid of the Black Ring leader yourself?”

He gasped indignantly, recoiling in shock. “Do you _really_ think the future Divine should take such risks…? Besides, you’re the one seeking help—perhaps you can put your murderous skills to the greater good.”

That was it. Sebille whipped around on her heel and strode back to Ifan, Red, and Fane whose sour faces mirrored hers precisely. “Can you believe that…?” She didn’t dare finish the sentence while outnumbered by the ones who could so quickly turn from friend to enemy, but she didn’t have to. Red and Fane were already nodding while Ifan cast dagger after dagger towards the oblivious Alexandar, disgruntledly attempting to clean the remaining dried blood off of his face.

Sebille’s jaw was still tightly clenched as she said, “He hardly has his father’s qualities, not that those were much. Besides, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.”

Red scoffed, giving her a lenient look down. No, that wouldn’t be very far, he seemed to be saying, before he shifted his gaze to Alexandar. “Divinity requires a certain strength of character this whippersnapper woefully misses.” Sebille stifled a laugh.

“We’re talking about the same person, right?” Ifan grumbled. “Trusting Alexandar to be Divine would be proof of madness.” Sebille could argue they’d left several more proofs of madness all over the island but she held her tongue.

Fane tightened his teeth in what Sebille learnt by now was meant to resemble a grin. “Far be it from me to judge the plain, simple mind that dwells within that man’s skull, but… No. Simply no.”

Sebille stifled a laugh against Ifan’s spaulder before straightening up, eyes wide with realisation. “You know, this is the first time all of us have ever agreed on something.”

Red hummed. “You’re right. Feels like cause for celebration.”

“I have an idea,” Ifan mumbled, looking over at Alexandar talking to one of his Magisters in a low voice, “but a certain somebody won’t let me do it.” He glanced back at Sebille with mock exasperation but there was a playful twinkle in his green eye.

Sebille gave a soft chuckle, but something made her follow his gaze to Alexandar. Whatever he had to offer—if anything—couldn’t have been worth the risk of him becoming Divine, or, for that matter, the humiliation of fulfilling his ‘request’. “Actually, I changed my mind,” she said to Ifan then, handing him one of her daggers. “Go wild on him for me.”

If Ifan’s previous smile was exciting, the one he treated her to now was to _die_ for. “My pleasure,” he said with a wink. Before she could turn around, the dagger was already buried in Alexandar’s chest all the way to the hilt. And again. And again. It all happened so fast, the Magisters and Paladins managed to shake off their shock and draw their weapons only after Alexandar’s body had already hid the leaf-turned-floor of the Elven temple. _Her_ temple, Sebille thought. _Our_ _temple_ , Tir-Cendelius replied. She grinned, drawing her other dagger and calling the power from within. Now, this blood felt _righteous_.

She stepped into the middle of the floor, eyes blazing with Source as she glanced around Alexandar’s entourage. “If any of you would like to take this opportunity to surrender, no harm—"

“You picked a wrong fight!” Magister Roe shouted, calling upon the wind to sweep Sebille away from the battlefield.

“I don’t think I did,” she sighed just before teleporting to another level and calling up all of her Source. The elements raged around them and with a deafening crack the sky opened: lightning and hail rained down on the Paladins; a firestorm hit in the Magisters’ midst; oil, soot, and ice covered the floor, poison seeped from the tree. Fane happily danced in one of the green puddles, casting inferno upon everyone who wasn’t on fire yet. Red zipped around the battlefield in a flurry of blood and steel while Ifan whistled a catchy tune, picking off those who foolishly tried to escape. Sebille shook her head disappointedly. And the Elven priestess who guarded the Mother Tree’s heart stood nearby, watching the carnage unfold with benign, ruminative interest in her eyes.


	11. Chapter 11

_“Let’s convince that human buffoon to sacrifice himself instead.”_

_“Do you think he’ll do it?”_

_“…I don’t intend on giving him much of a choice.”_

The priest took one glance at Sebille and let them all through without so much as a word. They climbed onto the second level, the branches closing above them into a cloistered top, protected from the rest of the temple. It was quiet in here, peaceful: a true place of worship. But Sebille didn’t feel peaceful or quiet; her daggers were still dripping red and bloodlust was still coursing through her veins, the memories from a time forgotten, of the Mother Tree’s plans and her own escape, suddenly so fresh in her mind. She was not ready to face Her. But how could she ever be?

“You lot stay here,” she ordered as she slowly approached the aromatic flower in the deep end of the small chamber formed by the tree herself. “I need to do this alone.” She didn’t have to turn back to see the look her three companions exchanged in the split second of silence.

“Seb, if it gets ugly in there, you’ll—” Ifan started but Red interrupted him with the most laconic of questions.

“Are you quite certain?”

Sebille glanced back only to give them a ghost of a smile and nodded; the heavy, oily fragrance was already filling her nostrils as she took one last step and breathed it deep, deep, deep in. No, she wasn’t really certain at all.

The cavern she woke up in would be nothing short of astounding and serene were it not for the panicked, deafening beating of her heart, echoing in her ears like thunder of lightning, tempest of fire, roar of the sea—the most primal battle cry. But once she jumped to her feet, elements defensively wrapping around her arms, she realised it wasn’t the sound of her own heart after all—but rather the Mother Tree’s core fluttering in terror before her. Against her better judgment, she stepped down the stairs and approached the lone figure standing in front of the Heart. As soon as the woman spotted her, she spoke in deep, rumbling tones, urging Sebille to help the Mother Tree. _Back to the old tricks, I see,_ Sebille thought, gritting her teeth. A lecture on having escaped would have been better than to be told to do things with no accounting for consent. Again.

“You must rid us of the shadow. Use your special talents.”

Sebille’s teeth ground in her skull. Those ‘talents’ had been forced upon her against her will and she was beyond done employing them for anybody’s benefit other than her own. She was through spilling blood at the beck and call of others.

She wondered if the Mother Tree knew—or cared—that She had become everything Sebille hated, all which filled her with dread and made her hands tremble with raging fury. Or perhaps She was always so.

Sebille truly only kept exchanging one Master for another, didn’t she?

“Explain,” she forced out, trying to keep herself under control. There was no reason to doubt the Mother couldn’t see into her mind but Sebille hid her shaky fingers in tight fists anyway.

The Scion spoke again: Sebille could now hear, through that rumble and the steady, melodic rhythm, that the voice underneath was truly empty, devoid of emotion or any slither of independent thought. “The Shadow Prince is on this island, seeking our annihilation.” _Well, that’s easy, then_ , Sebille mused, relaxing a little. Red was already planning to escort the Shadow Prince to the Hall of Echoes—all Sebille needed to do now was let him do that. That much she could— “He is the Master of the House of Shadows.” Obviously.

…Wait.

“He is a terror that breathes.”

Sebille’s own breath quickened in terror, though she didn’t dare fathom why.

“You know him simply as the Master, Sebille.”

The words, too true to believe, echoed in her mind, fluttering like a bird in a cage, slamming into her skull as if to break free, through, apart by sheer force of will of a man she was fully expecting to find and see on this island and yet, somehow, not like this.

Like a night terror, once spoken of aloud, He suddenly became _real_.

The Scion kept speaking, eyes dark and empty, urging Sebille to go to Zorl-Stissa’s temple and take her vengeance, but all Sebille could hear and think was the revelation. _You know him… The Master… The Master…_

The walls were closing in. Air suffocated. Ground shook and gave. Sebille scrambled for the exit, gasping for her dying breaths, knees scraped and palms slick with blood. There was no support to speak of, no foothold, no raft or branch to hold on to. No lifeline at all.

She crawled. She crawled and cried like a terrified child.


	12. Chapter 12

_“Sebille! It is so good to see you once more. I must speak with you. It is of the greatest importance. At last I see clearly. I know what must be done.”_

Sebille blinked the tears away, eyes slowly focusing on the blind face before her. Saheila was speaking in hushed tones, urgently pulling her aside and away from the flower, as though it would allow the Mother to hear their conversation. As though they weren’t standing on Her leaves, under Her branches, next to Her trunk.

“The Mother is sick. She is weak. Her grip slips at last. You make her so. You kill her Scions. _You_ are strong now, Sebille.” She didn’t feel strong. Just like last time they spoke, Sebille felt shell-shocked, dumbstruck, slow, and sick herself. Her eyes burnt. Her throat was dry with fear. So she stayed silent. “You are Prime Scion. You are Godwoken. This is a unique opportunity. The impossible is now possible.” None of this was making much sense to Sebille. She could only tell, vaguely, that Saheila was choosing a very twisted way to tell Sebille she had been right all along. Why? “Kill her.” Ah. There. “Free us from her tyranny. Please… Finish what you start. One more kill. You must strike at her heart. Do this for me. Do this for all of us. _Set us free_.”

Sebille painfully remembered the echoes of sneers she could hear between the trees—or perhaps only in her mind?—when she’d escaped the Mother Tree’s call before, run away from the Forest. She was vilified then, and she would be vilified now. How come they were now changing their minds? Suddenly agreeing with her younger self?

“The Mother stops progress. The Mother stops lovers,” Saheila answered. Her hands trembled against Sebille’s skin. The vibrations offset her own shaking and for a split second, it all seemed to stop. The world was quiet. And kind.

Her heart was still.

Her mind was _dead_.

Sebille snapped out with a start but Saheila didn’t seem to notice as she spoke: “The Mother wants vengeance. She is hollow. But all Elves want is to live.”

 _That_ was the shadow, Sebille belatedly realised. The Mother didn’t blame her. In that one crime, that one ultimate sin, Sebille was not at fault. The Master killed the Scions. Their deaths made the Mother weak and sick. She needed him gone to protect the few Scions left, her last remaining lifelines, like Saheila. And Sebille was to exact Her revenge, kill for Her like she had killed for him. To the Mother, that seemed like justice. Turn the tables around. Use his own tool against him. Defeat him with his own assassin.

To Sebille, it was but another violation.

What did it matter, anyway?

She caught herself nodding absent-mindedly, just like the last time they spoke. Saheila, satisfied, skulked away. Sebille’s body was made of lead as she turned around to her approaching companions. Ifan and Fane seemed like they needed to climb back up here after having spent some time elsewhere—but Red was at her side in an instant. “And the verdict?”

Sebille paled as she took in his towering lizard form, shudders starting anew. “What—” she coughed the word up, her throat clamping down. “What do you mean?”

They exchanged another glance. _Deep breaths, Sebille._

“What did the Mother Tree ask you to do?” Fane finally asked, his voice as confused as the sound of old bones scraping against an ancient sarcophagus could be. “She wanted you here for a reason, did she not?”

Sebille shrugged, as if that was going to explain her obvious distress. “What we were about to do anyway.”

Through some mysterious workings, that made them all relax. “Ah,” Ifan exhaled. “The fate of the Godwoken. Nothing but ascend, ascend, ascend.”

She gave a wry chuckle, looking after Saheila. “But she… she asked me to kill Her. Now that she sees the truth, she realised what I’d done back when I was still…” She trailed off, chewing her lip. That was the day she’d sealed her fate, was it not?

“Hey.” Ifan’s hands were suddenly so warm and grounding as they grasped her shoulders. “Step by step, remember? Day by day.” He and Red flanked her while Fane led them down the ladder and across the temple. “Speaking of, it’s nearly dusk. It might be worth spending the night here at the temple before moving on forward. We made camp…” Ifan’s eyes darkened even more somehow, staring at what was left of the Magisters as they were passing by. “…some ways away from here.”

Sebille caught his chin and turned his face back to her. His gaze flicked down to her lips but she held it firmly with her eyes as she pressed her forehead to his. She could feel his pulse on her fingertips, the tension in his jaw melting away, his brows shooting up vulnerably, his soul creaking open. He was hers; she was his.

“I’m proud of you, Ifan.”


	13. Chapter 13

_The acrid stench of Deathfog permeated through the dense, dark forest. Every molecule in his body was screaming in panic, urging him to run, run, run as fast as he could, escape this massacre before it got to him because if he so much as breathed deeply… But he stood rooted in place, much like the Ancestor Trees all around him. He did this. They couldn’t run, and neither would he._

_And they **screamed**. The trees screamed in agony like psychic blasts exploding in his mind, and screamed, and **wilted**. He had never seen a **tree** wilt before, fold upon itself like wet paper, and die, screaming, contorted into a twisted, dark grave of its former glory; and he vowed never to see that horror again._

_Tears blurred his vision but he called upon what little Source he could muster to give himself farsight, his bow at the ready. He had always preferred crossbows, but Lucien taught that the warrior of the Divine had to be elegant and precise. And Lucien taught that Source was a force as powerful as it was unpredictable, and should only be employed by those who were truly masters of Sourcery. And then had always refused to train Ifan in it. And now, Ifan knew why._

_He watched the pungent massacre—nay, the genocide before him, heard the Elven screams, and saw the Black Ring running for their lives. None of this was elegant, or precise._

_He gritted his teeth and stood his ground as he rained arrows upon the Black Ring survivors. He made this happen. He destroyed an entire race, and for what?_

_They fell like flies, consumed by the oncoming fog, and he stood his ground and vowed. He would not let it all be in vain. He would not be lied to, or tricked, or used like a tool. And he would never trust men in power again._

They thought she was but a tool to use. And if she went through with this, she would only be proving them right. If she killed the Sallow Man, she would be Alexandar’s tool. If she killed the Mother, she would be Saheila’s tool. And if she killed the Master, she would be the Mother’s tool.

But she could not bear the thought of letting him live. To see him dead was her vengeance and her purpose. She had wrapped herself around this mission like a warm friend. It was her comfort.

She fiddled with her needle, head in Ifan’s lap, trying to blink her tears away. They’d already killed Alexandar. Wasn’t she the Sallow Man’s tool now? Wasn’t she only playing into the same hand the Master had dealt her when he forced her to kill her friends, her kin?

She had already sold her soul away, hadn’t she?

Tir-Cendelius’s power roared inside her as if in response, and she growled unhappily. “I have half the mind to just murder everybody on this godsforsaken island.”

Fane coughed, choked, and scoffed, giving Ifan the wine-filled carafe they were passing around. “I like how you say ‘godsforsaken’ even though it’s likely the last place in the world they still have any power left over.”

“I liked how we’ve already begun acting upon that notion,” Red replied in a voice that betrayed his dismay as he nodded in the general direction of their most recent carnage. “Although I truly cannot fathom why we are helping the Sallow Man.”

Sebille glanced up at Ifan, watching his throat bobbing for a little while as he drank. “We didn’t do it for him.”

“But you took Alexandar’s head.”

“Which I will gladly use to gain access to the Sallow Man and then we can promptly kill him, too. Hell, I’ll _eat_ it in front of him if that’s what it takes.”

Ifan put the bottle in her hand with a shudder that made her head jerk. “Please don’t.”

Sebille shrugged. “And I hope we can all agree…” She took a sip and passed the wine on to Red. “…that the Black Ring are no better than any of them.”

“And their mission is to stop our Ascension.” Red propped himself up on his elbow to take a sip. He offered it back to Fane but the skeleton refused with a shake of his skull.

“Clearly, someone is afraid of us,” he said.

“Precisely.” Sebille gave a soft chuckle and, seeing that Red clearly intended to keep the wine to himself, she pulled out another bottle for herself and Ifan. “We may have used the ‘Almira’s thralls’ story to get past them so far, but I have no love for any of them. I would not mind spilling some black blood.”

Ifan’s face soured. “Or Magister blood. Or Paladin blood.”

“Hey.” Sebille put her hand on his, wrapping it around the neck of the carafe. “They attacked us. I gave them an out, but they didn’t take it.”

Ifan smiled down softly, stroking her hair. He didn’t move his hand away. “I know.”

Red took a sip of his wine, his yellow eyes meeting Sebille’s. She couldn’t quite tell what that gaze meant. “And then there’s the Shadow Prince,” he said finally and her heart jumped a gear. Did he know, somehow? “Who has been trying to kill me.”

“Us.” She trembled at the thought. Ifan absent-mindedly pulled the blanket higher on her shoulder. “Whom, in turn, the Mother Tree wants us to kill.”

“And Saheila wants us to kill the Mother Tree.”

“And she has a point. I told you before I was in no way keen on allowing her the control she’s been craving.”

Fane shrugged, his bare bones rattling in the cool evening air. His cloak was neatly folded next to his bedroll. “Nothing quite like a good world domination plot, though.”

Sebille chuckled. “If it were good, perhaps I’d be more inclined to help her.”

“I think it could be one more thing we could all agree on,” Red muttered. Ifan and Fane nodded along.

“You’re right.” Sebille sat up, looking between them. “And are we all in agreement that the Sallow Man must die?”

“It pains me that’s what Alexandar wanted, but yes.” Ifan sighed while Red and Fane both gave a firm nod.

Sebille smiled proudly. This was getting impressive. Have they finally found a common tongue? Even if it was, for all intents and purposes, death? “Are we all in agreement that the Shadow Prince must die?” Ifan and Fane were nodding before she even finished. She glanced at Red and her heart fluttered. Was it fear at the very mention? At Red having figured it out? Excitement to finally be done with Him? The shame of doing exactly what her masters wanted from her?

Or was it something entirely different, sending her heart into a frenzy?

Red met her gaze head on, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “ _After_ he gives me the information he supposedly has.”

She chewed on her lip, breaking eye contact before he bore into her mind and pulled the secrets out. “Let’s hope that can be arranged. And the Black Ring?”

Ifan scoffed. “Too fanatical.”

“They’re an insult to the necromancing arts,” Fane added indignantly.

Red’s face twisted in utter disgust. “…Vermin.”

“We’ll kill any and each as we go along, then,” Sebille decided and they all nodded again.

“You took the ruthlessness that poor misguided lizard spoke of to heart, huh?” Ifan teased.

She chuckled, remembering Tir-Cendelius’s confusion. Sometimes the trees whisper to themselves.

“And after I swore to mine we wouldn’t kill innocents…” Red sighed. She remembered how shaken he was to be so revered, still. It was almost as if he’d forgotten where he’d come from, wasn’t it? Like they, or she, chased the ‘prince’ out of him. And the further they went, the more he was only ‘Red’ in her mind.

“I hope we won’t.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “That’s why we’re having this talk. To agree they are none of them innocents.”

Red looked towards their point of contact, and for a minute, there was nothing else: just them, the silence, and the coolness of his scales under her fingers. And then he moved away, pulling his blanket over himself. “Shall I take first watch?”

Sebille blinked in what felt like… longing? sorrow? But she cleared her throat and said, “We’re in a temple that has not come down yet and there are several people between us and the entrance still. I think we have all the warning systems we need. Let’s just all get some sleep and rest up for the morrow.”

“You’ll hear no protests from me,” Fane replied, already disappearing under his covers.

“Fane, you _never_ take watch.”

“And there is good reason for that!”

Sebille chuckled, shaking her head as she crawled into her own bedroll. Ifan was settling down in his, so close she could count the hairs in his beard. She smiled at him and whispered, “Thank you for taking care of Rhalic.”

Ifan smiled fondly as he reached out to stroke her cheek. “I couldn’t very well let you lose those beautiful eyes of yours, could I now?” She closed them then and let his gentle touch lull her to fitless, terrorless, restful sleep.


End file.
